


Enough

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: (You can guess who), Cinderella AU, Dadfic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Noct as Cinderella, Some violence and abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-17 01:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16965033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Once upon a time, there lived a young queen who loved her husband very much.But love was not enough.-----A Cinderella story where Aulea runs off with Noctis as a small child, only for Noctis to be taken by the empire, unknowing of his heritage. A fill for the kinkmeme!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is already written, but I've changed the second half quite a bit from the way it went when I originally posted it, so this will update over the coming week while I polish it up.

Once upon a time, there lived a young queen who loved her husband very much.

But love was not enough.

Love was not enough to hide the wide stone wall in the family crypt, etched with the names of the dead. Love was not enough to hide a history of firstborn children locked in cellars and bricked into walls, of second sons driving cold blades into their brothers' hearts, of proud heirs brought low. Love was not enough to hide the pain that lanced through her husband's body every time he put on his ring of office. Love was not enough to bury the records of princes and princesses left wailing and wretched on the throne room floor, a black ring on their twisted, burning fingers, the weight of their ancestors' magic too heavy to bear.

Love was not enough.

And so Queen Aulea took her child, Prince Noctis, the firstborn son of King Regis Lucis Caelum and Aulea Artemis Caelum, and disappeared into the night, followed by the distant sirens of Insomnia's Crownsguard. She drove to the home of an old friend, who opened his garage door to find his queen standing in silk robes and useless shoes, her infant son on her shoulder. He gave her old, practical clothes, clipped her black hair short, and when the Crownsguard came to question him the next morning, he said nothing of the truck that had gone missing from his garage overnight.

Aulea rented a small apartment in the back alleys of Lestallum. She found a job at the power plant, working with her hands for the first time in her life, and came home every afternoon to pick up her son from a daycare that only knew him as "Serena's boy." She learned how to cook. She taught Noctis how to walk and talk, and sang to him when the lights of their apartment flickered and the daemons of the wastes began to howl. And Noctis loved her very much.

But love was not enough.

"Boy! Look at me when I speak to you."

Noct stared at the tile floor of General Glauca's front hall, which he'd spent the better part of the morning polishing on his hands and knees, and said nothing. A set of muddy footprints trailed across the room, ending in the heavy black boots that creaked by Noct's fingers. The boots belonged to the General, a man from Galahd with the insignia of Niflheim on his breast, and he stared down at Noct with the disgust of a man coming home to find a strange creature soiling his carpet.

Noct rubbed at the sore spot on his jaw and looked into Glauca's eyes.

"Useless," Glauca said. "As expected."

Noct bit his cheek. The General's moods always swung wildly after an extended absence. Melancholy Noct could handle. All he had to do was walk quietly, slip Glauca his meals with as little fuss as possible, and avoid making eye contact. But on days like this, when Glauca seemed to shake with fury, radiating rage like the charge of the air before a thunderstorm, there was nothing Noct could do.

"I'll expect dinner in an hour," Glauca said, striding past Noct to grind mud into the carpeted stairs. Noct clenched his teeth. "What a godsdamned waste."

Noct waited for the sound of footsteps to disappear up the stairs, then slowly got to his feet, rolled his shoulders, and went to the cabinet for a mop.

Dinner was late. Caligo Ulldor, a frequent visitor when Glauca was on assignment, pulled Noct aside halfway through to demand that he turn off the oven, wash his hands, and polish Caligo's boots. Again. And again, just there, couldn't he see it? When Noct was finally done, with the light of the fire reflecting off Caligo's boots, the hour bell had already rung.

"Remarkable," Caligo said, and Noct forced himself to look up, hands twisting on the shoe brush. Caligo's sunken cheeks lifted in a mocking smile. "From this angle, you almost look like her."

And that was how Noct was dragged by his hair into the dining room by a red-faced Caligo, in full view of Glauca, Loqi, and several other high-ranking officials of the Niflheim army, and thrown to his hands and knees on the carpet. Caligo stepped on his back, holding him down, and Noct's fingers clenched.

"Glauca," Caligo said. "You need to teach your dog proper discipline."

Glauca regarded Noct in silence, looking at his tense back, his arms straining to rise under Caligo's weight, the heat of his glare. "One lash," he said, "for every ten minutes we have to wait. Dinner should have been served half an hour ago. Caligo, sit down."

Caligo lifted his foot from Noct's back, and Noct raced down the stairs, pushing open the kitchen door with a resounding bang.

_You almost look like her._

Noct turned on the stove and threw the vegetables in a pot. He'd been going for a Galahdian dish to get on Glauca's good side, but with a fourth lash already on the way and more to come, he didn't have that kind of time. He dug in the fridge for leftover cake he could carve up, and threw together plates of cold-cut ham, sauce from the bottle, and sauteed vegetables.

When he set Caligo's dinner down at last, Noct banged an elbow into the table, tipping a cup of wine in Caligo's lap.

Fifteen lashes later, Noct lay on his stomach while Glauca placed strips of medicated bandages on his shoulders.

"It would be easier," Glauca said, "if you'd admit to yourself that you can't rise above your heritage. You come from a degenerate line, Boy, a legacy of self-centered fools, and the best you can hope for is to try and make yourself useful to _someone."_

"Don't talk about my..." Noct hissed as Glauca gripped his shoulder hard. "My mother like that."

Glauca said nothing. He stood, a shadow over Noct's face, and retreated from the dark hall where Noct slept, passing like a ghost up the stairs. Noct closed his eyes to the throbbing pain on his back and tried to remember the apartment he and his mother shared, before it happened.

His strongest memory was of a shuttered window, high above a living room small enough to be a closet. It was all scattered in his mind: Clothes hanging up to dry in the kitchen. Soup on the stove. Calloused hands holding a needle, stitching magnificent portraits of thread and old cloth, while his mother sat cross-legged on the bed.

He was sleeping at her side when Caligo and his men came, breaking down their door to the thunder of boots and fists and clanking armor. Neither of them had stood a chance.

There used to be a time, when Noct was small and terrified and still cried for his mother in the dark, that he'd close his eyes and wish to be somewhere else. To be home, with his mother, with the long, awful silence that was his father, with an imagined army of cousins and friends and aunts and uncles. He dreamed of walking out the door and into arms of the woman he'd left behind in Lestallum, her body crumpled on the cheap carpet. He dreamed of a man he didn't know breaking down the gates of the estate, holding a blazing sword in one hand and a sphere of magic in the other, declaring Noct _his,_ his son, safe at last.

These days, Noct knew better. Dreams were fine and good, something to pass the time when the world closed in, but they couldn't sustain him. Dreams held no power. Wishes held no magic. And no amount of hoping, no fervent prayer or desperate plea, would ever be enough.

 

\---

 

"He's growing desperate," Glauca said to Caligo the next morning, while Noct wrestled with Caligo's suitcases at the door. The imperial airship that waited for Caligo on the front lawn was filled to the brim with quiet, watchful MT units, but none of them were given orders to pack Caligo's things, load them onto the ship, or check them against the extensive inventory Caligo had dropped in his lap at five in the morning. As Noct passed, dragging a case of weapons after him, Caligo glanced his way.

"He hasn't found a suitable heir?" he asked. Glauca coughed, and Caligo's gaze slid from Noct, but the casual disinterest seemed almost forced. Noct paused, feet digging into the gravel path.

"The ring chooses its successor," Glauca said. "His heir needs to have an aptitude for magic. The resilience to withstand it. The ability to adapt to the change it will force on the host's body."

"You have a candidate," Caligo said.

"Perhaps." Glauca's voice turned sharp. "Boy!"

Noct sighed and continued dragging the case towards the airship. It was pretty obvious what they were talking about, anyways. Everyone was obsessed with the king of Lucis; From the grocer who stopped by to drop off supplies every Monday to the early morning radio DJs. King Regis Lucis Caelum was the last of his line, the only remaining bulwark against the Niflheim army, and a persistent thorn in the emperor's side. His ring was either a curse or a gift from the gods, depending on who you talked to, and he used it to call down the magic in his blood, creating a wall that protected Insomnia from enemy fire. But he was getting older, or so the rumors said, and if he didn't find someone to take the ring and the crown, his heart would give out under the strain.

It was a little sad, really. The guy lost his wife and son all at once, and now his own magic was killing him. Noct had felt it more keenly than most, because when he was young, his mom used to tell him stories about the king. Ridiculous, fanciful stories, all about some punk twenty-something whose magic kept getting out of hand, nothing like the vague legends people told in the market square. There were plenty of royalists in Lestallum, though; Noct was probably one of at least twenty Noctises in his district. There were even more Regises, and one or two Auleas. People thought of the royal line of Lucis as a sort of lucky charm, their last ditch hope against the Niflheim empire.

Which probably explained why Glauca and Caligo never called him by his name.

Caligo took his time leaving, so Noct snuck out under the pretense of checking the laundry, skirting the edges of Glauca's simmering displeasure with the care of a skittish mouse before a hawk. He did walk through the lines of laundry, which wasn't quite dry, but he stopped at the garden shed for a bucket and a fishing rod, taking off for the small dock at the edge of the property.

Ten years ago, Noct tried to swim across the river in the middle of the night, shivering in an unseasonable chill. He was caught by a patrol of MT axemen, who dragged him back before Glauca by the scruff of his neck, screaming and thrashing like a wild creature in a trap. Afterwards, Glauca had him chained to the kitchen wall until he could prove that he wouldn't run away again. The hook was still there, jammed between the garbage disposal and a low counter, the heavy chain coiled on the tile like a snake.

These days, the river was still patrolled by MT soldiers, but Noct knew better than to do more than dangle his feet off the edge of the dock. He set a lure and cast a line out to the deeps, where he'd once floundered and beat his fists against the cheap armor of his captors, and teased the lure across the dark water.

It was a beautiful day, really. Oak trees leaned over the river, making patches of shade against the blinding light of the sun, and birds rustled in the underbrush, plucking hard berries from bushes that clustered close to the bank. Lightning, a white cat that hung around the herb garden most afternoons, padded up to Noct's side, purring deeply. Another cat followed her, a grey tabby with markings that framed his remarkably golden eyes.

"Hey, girl," Noct said, scratching Lightning under the chin. "High on catmint again? Yes you are. Yes you _are._ You aren't fooling anyone, you know."

"Damn." The grey tabby disappeared into a swirl of black mist. "You always ruin my fun, Noct."

The man who stepped out of the shadows, carefully dusting off his ridiculous collar and adjusting a billowing jacket, had the same gold eyes and smug grin as the cat. Noct liked to think of him as _the ghost,_ but he called himself _Ardyn, Ardyn Izunia,_ and took great pains to remind Noct to treat him with a semblance of respect.

Since Ardyn was the only person in the estate who couldn't actually hurt him, Noct didn't bother.

He'd first met the ghost shortly after his disastrous escape attempt. Ardyn had appeared on the kitchen counter behind Caligo, lounging on the countertop like a goddess in an old painting, clearly bored out of his mind. Caligo hadn't noticed him, not even when he turned to go, and Ardyn had jumped down to introduce himself with a bow and a sweep of his fine silk hat.

He didn't always show up when Noct expected him to, though. He came and went like a faulty signal, sometimes going for months on end without an appearance, only to pop up next to Noct as he scrubbed out the basement or mowed the lawn.

"A free day off?" he asked, leaning on the post holding up the rickety dock. "Lucky you."

"Not really," Noct said. "Caligo's heading out, so I have an hour while he tries to boss Glauca around." He jerked the rod.

Ardyn sighed. "This is what you've come to," he said. "What happened to the boy who used to dream of taking out half the Niflheim army on his day off?"

"Dunno," Noct said. "Grew up, probably."

Ardyn watched him keenly, lips pursed. "So now you dream of an hour to fish," he said.

"Sure." Noct reeled in the line. "It's a dream I can actually accomplish. What about you? Any work on that unfinished business of yours?"

"Ready to be rid of me so soon?" Ardyn asked. "Me, your dearest companion?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Noct said. "You aren't my dearest anyone." He glanced Ardyn's way, taking in the wicked smile and tilt to his chin. "You're alright, though."

"I'm honored," Ardyn said, in a dry voice. Noct grinned. "You should work on that dream, though. Expand the borders a little."

"Fine," Noct said. He cast again. "I want an hour break and an actual bed. How's that?"

Ardyn scoffed. "Come to me again when you have a real desire, my boy."

"Yeah?" Noct kept his gaze on the water. "So you can what, nitpick it to death?"

There was no answer. Noct twisted around to find the dock empty of ghosts, with Lightning sprawled out on the boards to catch the sun.

"You're only skipping out 'cause you know I'm right," he said, and turned back to the water.

In the end, Noct caught just enough for dinner for one, and gutted the fish in the sink outside the kitchen door, to the delight of the cat at his feet. He fried himself a meal before he got to work on Glauca's, and was licking grease off his fingers when Loqi, one of Caligo's guests, stomped down the stairs and into the room.

"General Glauca has been calling for you for an hour," Loqi said, flushes of pink blooming on his cheeks. "Caligo has been delayed. They're waiting for you in the office." He raised his chin, endeavoring to look down on Noct from a good two inches below his brow. "And a word of advice, if you're clever enough to take it: You'd best be prepared to grovel."


	2. Chapter 2

General Glauca’s office was a small, well-furnished room, and one of the few places in the estate Noct was not allowed to enter without permission. A massive computer tower was wedged in the far corner, protected by a steel door with an impressive lock, and it hummed louder than the radiator, obscuring the soft voices of Glauca and Caligo at the desk. The desk itself was familiar enough: Noct had stood there more times than he could count, quietly bracing himself as Glauca took his displeasure out on Noct’s shoulders or palms, laying bare every fault and failing of Noct’s character with every wince and gasp. He flexed his fingers at the sight of the polished desktop, and remained at the door.

“Close it,” Glauca said. Noct carefully released the handle, and the door clicked shut behind him. Glauca and Caligo were facing him now, their eyes hungry, and Noct remembered Loqi’s advice a moment too late.

“Whatever I’ve done,” he said, “I can explain.”

“Caligo and I have been called away,” Glauca said. His hand was splayed out on a thick sheet of paper on the desk, thick with small, cramped writing. “To Lucis. We should be gone for three days. During that time, you are to remain within the walls of the estate. Two MT soldiers will follow you, acting as a guard until our return.”

Noct held his breath. Two guards? For _him?_ Glauca continued, his voice dull and inflectionless. “You will stick to the schedule we give you. If you do not follow orders, the guards will pacify you—“

“Pacify?” Noct said. Caligo shifted his weight, and Noct bit the inside of his cheek, tasting copper on his tongue.

Glauca lifted his hand from the paper on the desk, which shifted forward in a soft puff of air from the vents. Noct caught a glimpse of a seal on the top, black and shot through with gold.

“It is not your place to question us, boy,” Glauca said. “Have a care.”

“Can I ask why?" Noct said.

“No.”

Glauca turned, and the vent sent the paper skittering across the desk, tipping off the side with the weight of broken wax. Caligo and Glauca both lunged for it, but Noct caught it first, calloused fingers scraping over the glossy surface.

 _His Majesty King Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII invites one Titus Drautos and his Candidate to the Ordeal of the Crown,_ Noct read. _Contenders to the throne of Lucis must undergo three trials to obt—_

Caligo ripped the paper from Noct’s hands, and light burst behind his eyes as a fist connected to the back of his head, sending him to his knees with a thump that shook the floor. He blinked heavily, looking down at his hands, half open on his thighs.

“Who’s Titus?” Noct asked. His voice sounded warped and faraway, like it was coming back at him through deep water.

Glauca pushed away from the desk. The sudden violence of his movement startled Noct to action, but he was too dazed to do more than cringe back before a hand curled around the frayed collar of his shirt, dragging him up to look Glauca in the eyes.

“You will forget what you’ve seen, Boy,” Glauca said, in a cold, quiet voice.

Which was, Noct realized, through a haze of pain, the wrong thing to say. If the paper weren’t important, if the word _Titus_ weren’t important, then it wouldn’t matter if Noct looked at it or not. But Glauca and Caligo desperately didn’t want him to know, enough that they were willing to threaten him at the sight of it, to assign guards to watch him, to craft a schedule to keep him trapped in the estate walls.

“You have a candidate,” Noct said. “What you said before. You have a candidate for the crown.” Glauca’s grip tightened. “Do you think I’m gonna run off and tell someone? Because I’m a royalist?”

No. No, it wasn’t that. It was something else, but Noct couldn’t grasp it, not with his head swimming and Glauca carting him around like a rag doll.

“Do you think anyone would believe you?” Glauca asked. “You? A weak,” he threw Noct into a corner, where he hit the edge of a bookshelf. Books clattered on his sore shoulders, and he threw up his arms. “Selfish child. Clearly lacking in imagination, let alone any measure of ambition. What threat,” he snarled, “does a creature like you pose to anyone?”

Noct looked at the crumpled letter in Caligo's hand, then back up at Glauca. "Who's Titus?"

This time, Glauca winced. It wasn't much, just a flicker of an eye, but it was there.

“Chain him,” Glauca said. “I’ll take no chances.”

Noct offered no resistance as MT soldiers appeared at the door, grabbing him by the shoulders to march him down the stairs. Noct was thrown into the kitchen, the heavy chain was uncoiled, and a boot rested squarely on his neck as shackles were placed on his wrists. The MTs took up a position at the door, and when Noct tried to rise, the chain shifting, one of them turned flaming eyes his way. Noct settled back down and stared at his knees.

"Oh, dear," said Ardyn. "This does look uncomfortable, doesn't it?"

Noct swung his head towards the door. Ardyn strode through, patting one of the MTs on the cheek as he did, his smart boots moving soundlessly across the tile. He tipped his hat to Noct in a mocking sort of salute and crouched down in front of him, hands dangling between his knees.

"How are we, pet?" he asked.

"Less than ideal," Noct whispered. Ardyn laughed, reaching out to ruffle his hair.

"Oh, I can imagine," he said. "Your jailers are in a mood, it seems. Something about someone learning more than they should?" His eyes gleamed. "Is it true?"

Noct flexed his hands. "Don't know," he whispered. The MTs at the door were still and silent, but that was a small comfort. "They're pissed because I found out about some competition for the crown they're trying to sabotage, I think."

"Yes, but why?" Ardyn asked. He trailed cold fingers down Noct's cheek. "Why care what a useless little servant boy knows? Unless," Ardyn said, his hand cupping Noct's chin, "you aren't quite so useless as all that. Unless you're something more."

The air of the kitchen seemed frozen and thin, the world beyond its windows stuttering to a halt.

"Wouldn’t you want to know,” Ardyn breathed, “why Caligo would send a squad of soldiers into Lestallum to capture a servant boy? Don’t you want to know,” Noct shivered at the puff of icy breath on his skin, “what kind of a threat you really pose?”

Noct thought of fishing on the dock. The warmth of the sun on his face. A hard pallet in a moonlit hallway. Blood on an old carpet in a room he barely remembered.

“Yes," he whispered.

Ardyn smiled.

“Leave this to me, my boy,” he said. He crouched behind Noct, and Noct felt the brush of fingers on his wrists. “Just a moment. Two thousand years can make a man’s skills rather rusty, you know.”

“Bullshit,” Noct said. “No way you’re two thousand years—“

“I can always leave you here,” Ardyn said, and Noct bit his lip, scowling up at the ceiling. There was a slight pressure around his wrists, and the weight of the shackles dropped from them.

“So,” Ardyn said, while Noct stood and shook out his hands. “It seems as though the good king of Lucis is in need of an heir. He’s set up this to determine who would do the best job—“

“And Glauca has one,” Noct said. “He’s trying to put a puppet on the throne.”

“Yes," Ardyn said, brows raised. “Yes, perhaps he is. And for some reason, he doesn’t want _you_ to interfere.” His smile broadened. “Will you?”

Noct looked down at the chain on the floor, then at his hands. “Maybe,” he said. “If I can get away, maybe I can, I don’t know, petition the king. Ask for asylum.”

“And if you uncover a plot to take the throne, I’m sure the king will be more than happy to grant it,” Ardyn said. “But first, you’ll need to uncover our dear Glauca’s candidate, won’t you? You’ll need to get close. And who better to suss out a traitor than another candidate for the crown?”

Noct stared at Ardyn. Ardyn stared back. “You want me to take on this… Ordeal,” Noct said.

“It’s the best way to gain the king’s attention,” said Ardyn. “First, we'll have to do something about those guards." He straightened, adjusting his hat, and strode to the door. He sidestepped into one of the MTs, which shuddered and hissed, collapsing in on itself, while its partner closed in to assess the damage. It's hands shot out, digging into the guts of the other MT, reducing the both of them to wire and crumpled piles of armor. Noct's back hit the wall as Ardyn stepped out again, brushing off his shirtfront. "And one thing, Noct. I can get you there, but you’ll have to find your own way back.”

“Get me—how can you get me there?” Noct asked. “You can’t—“

“Oh, Noct,” Ardyn said. "Don't assume what I can and can't do for you."

Noct opened his mouth, but nothing came. Instead, he felt a weight on his back, like a colossal hand shoving him to his knees, and the kitchen started to blur, the edges going black. The last thing Noct saw before the darkness closed in was Ardyn smiling as thick, twisting shadows dripped down his cheeks. Then Noct saw nothing, nothing but the void, nothing but a screaming, riotous emptiness, tugging and clawing and grasping at him like a thousand small hands scrabbling for purchase, sending him tumbling into the dark.

He blinked, and he was back in the kitchen, looking down at his own hands. Except they weren't his hands, not really. They were armored, lined with black mesh and sharp at the nails, but when Noct ran a finger over one of them, his hand slipped and he felt the soft give of flesh. He looked up at Ardyn, whose smile had gone crooked, his eyes glittering.

"The illusion will hold," he said. "Long enough, in any case. Come." He held out a hand. "I believe you have an airship to catch."

 

\---

 

After over a decade of feeling like his every step was being dogged by an unseen eye, it was strange for Noct to head out of the kitchen and walk through the halls unnoticed. Glauca, Caligo, and the other officers didn’t spare a thought for an MT soldier climbing onto the airship a pace behind the others, nor did they seem particularly interested in the way he stood, shoulders bowed, watching them step onto the landing dock. They were too far for Noct to hear their whispered conversation, but he could still feel sweat creeping down his neck every time they shifted. All they needed to do was turn around, and they’d see him. A young man wearing a ghost’s attempt at illusion, liable to rip apart at any moment.

The ship lurched, and Noct almost pitched forward as the massive engine roared to life. They rose slowly off the lawn, and as they did, something in the air pressure _popped,_ making Noct’s ears sting and his skin crawl, like all his limbs had fallen asleep at once. He felt too _full,_ and for a second, his hands grew so hot that he could feel the fabric of his pants tearing under his fingers. He twitched his hands back with a jerk.

It felt like an age had passed by the time the ship began to descend again. Noct had spent long enough scrubbing out the guts of docked airships to memorize where they placed their emergency exits, and had slowly, painfully inched his way out of line and towards the small door by the toolbox. When the bay doors creaked and clanged, signaling the ordered chaos that was their arrival, Noct wrenched the emergency door open and dropped out the back.

When he hit the ground, the hand that struck the pavement was gloved, with no sign of armor or scale. He raised an arm to examine a very soft, very _real_ black silk jacket with silver pinstripes, and cuffs shaped into tiny, beautifully-crafted skulls. Exactly the kind of outfit Ardyn was likely to make, but he didn’t have time to admire it. He crouched low and ran for cover, ducking behind a box covered in blue tarp that flapped in the wind.

Before him lay Insomnia.

The city stretched out like a galaxy come down to earth, lights twinkling against the twilit sky. Lestallum was a backwater village compared to streets teeming with headlights, skyscrapers clustered together, and crowds of people gathering like an approaching tide. Noct held himself up by a railing and squinted up at the flickering panels of King Regis’ magical Wall, cursing under his breath.

To think that something so beautiful, so _powerful,_ was the king’s death sentence. And soon it would pass to another, maybe even Glauca’s candidate, and if it had the strength to keep up a wall for so long, who knew what someone under Glauca’s thumb could accomplish.

He skirted the edge of the landing pad until he found a small door leading to a service stair, and quietly shoved it open. The stairwell was unlit, and Noct had to hold onto the railing and pray that he didn’t miss a step as he went racing down four flights of stairs, careening forward through a set of wide doors into a hallway made of smooth grey marble.

“Hey!”

Noct flinched at the sound of boots clacking towards him, and instinctively raised an arm to ward himself. But the man coming towards him wasn’t Glauca, and he didn’t have the look of Niflheim to him, either. He had broad shoulders and a soldier’s gait, short-cropped hair and a brow that pinched in the middle, a permanent crease over the bridge of his nose.

“Sorry,” Noct said.

“For what?” The man had a piercing gaze, searching and sharp. Noct kept his own eyes fixed on the silver buttons of his black uniform, too wary to look at his face. “You do something I should know about?”

“I…” Noct straightened. “May be lost.”

Something in the man’s shoulders shifted, the lines of his uniform smoothing out at the edges. “Yes, you might be. You’re here for the Ordeal? Half the country is.” He held out a hand. “Marshal Cor Leonis.”

Noct stiffly took Cor’s hand. “Cor the Immortal,” he said. “Really.”

“Yes, really,” Cor said. Noct tried not to stare. “I guess you come from beyond the Wall, then. The nickname hasn’t caught on here yet, thank the gods. Here, I’ll take you down. You’re almost too late.”

Noct fell into step, trying not to look like a terrified twenty-year-old stumbling at the heels of a legend made flesh, and hooked his thumbs in his new jacket pockets. “So are there a lot of candidates?”

“Not as many as you’d think,” Cor said. “The ring puts people off.” He looked at Noct sidelong. “You have a name?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. Noct.”

Cor’s lips thinned. “That a real name, or are you trying to gain an edge on the competition?” When Noct just stared, he sighed. “Not very tactful, with the prince declared dead.”

“Well, it’s what I was born with,” Noct said. “I can’t help it.”

They turned a corner, and Noct could hear voices, a susurrus of whispering echoing down the hall. “Sorry, kid,” Cor said. “Might want to tell the judges to leave your first name off when they announce you, just to be safe. And you’ll want to borrow a mask at the door. They want to make it anonymous, but gods know it’s hard not to recognize some of the main contenders—Here we go.”

He stopped at a heavy iron door, twisted in a design of a woman holding a skull in both hands, with bronze ravens flying behind her to merge with the frame. Noct finally caught Cor’s eye, and Cor stopped for a second, his brows lowered.

“Noct, you said.” A crack in the door cast a sliver of gold over his right eye. “You have a last name?”

“Not that I remember,” Noct said. Cor frowned, but before he could speak, the doors opened under his hand, and both he and Noctis were engulfed in light.


	3. Chapter 3

Noct liked to think that he wasn't exactly a stranger to beauty. He knew the soft, sudden delight of fireflies rising from the grass in summer, the iridescent gleam of scales in the sunlight, the brilliant colors of a sunrise off the windows of the estate. He knew the deceptive elegance of fire and the shifting colors of a stream. He knew the glimmering flashes of a dining room polished to perfection, silent and empty a moment before the guests arrived.

None of that prepared him for this.

Noct blinked spots from his eyes as the pale glow of chandeliers shimmered on clear pillars filled with gold mechanical fish, off jewels on long necks and manicured hands, on floors polished so brightly that it must have taken a team of servants a week to scrub it down properly. Noct lay a hand on a pillar for support and quickly pulled away, too aware of the fingerprints already smearing the glass. A servant in black whirled by with a gold plate covered in chocolates; Another bowed as she handed a fluted glass to a woman in a blue gown.

"Sir?" Noct jumped at the sight of a short, heavyset man at his right, dressed to the nines in black and gold. "Have you signed the guest list yet?"

Noct craned around, trying to get a glimpse of Cor, but the man was lost in the press of bodies. "Uh, not yet," he said. "I need to speak to the king."

"Ah." The man's face fell. "Trying for the crown, are we?"

"Yeah." Noct rubbed the back of his neck. "They said I'll need a mask."

The man shrugged a shoulder. "I can't convince you otherwise?" he said, waving a hand for Noct to follow. Noct ducked between a group of giggling teenagers as the man walked sedately across the marble floor. "It's a hard trial, sir. Very hard. Without the royal blood to protect you, the chance of survival is..." He shrugged again. "Slim."

"That's fine." Noct didn't have to actually win the trial, after all. He just needed to find out who Glauca's candidate was, and he'd be free to disappear into the city, the estate nothing but a stain on his memory.

The man sighed deeply, lifting a black mask from a shallow tray, and pressed it into Noct's hands. He indicated a small notebook on a plinth. "Your name, please."

Noct tied the mask over his eyes, twisting the silk straps into a knot. "Aren't you gonna ask me for my papers?"

"We have our own vetting process," the man said. "It's thorough."

Noct didn't miss the grim tone of his voice, but he picked up the pen anyways, hovering over the page. Four names were already listed. _Ignis Scientia. Gladiolus Amicitia. Nyx Ulric. Ravus Nox Fleuret._ The last one made him pause. Ravus. He knew of Ravus. The newest Captain of the Niflheim army wasn't allowed to visit the estate, but he'd heard Caligo and Glauca speak of him often enough.

"I don't trust him," Glauca had said once. "Only scum turns on their own people."

"You'd know, then," Caligo had said, and Glauca had smiled thinly at him, raising a glass in a silent toast.

Ravus. Well, there was one possibility for Glauca's candidate. Noct set the pen down under Ravus' name. He needed something. A name. Any name but Noct. He looked up at the ceiling, where a mural featured a man surrounded by robed figures, hand outstretched to the light. Fire burned around him, and flecks of gray streaked his hands and face, running like tears down his cheeks.

 _Ash,_ Noct wrote.

"No surname, sir?" the man asked, peering over his shoulder. Noct smiled, and the man rocked on his heels.

"Maybe your vetting process can figure it out for me," Noct said. "Where do I need to go?"

"There will be an announcement... in an hour..." the man said. He adjusted his glasses and blinked. "I... Are you sure--"

"I'll be okay," Noct said. "Thanks." He smiled again, and the man's lips parted. "What's your name, anyways?"

"Scientia," the man said. "Lord Julian Scientia. Family retainer of the. Of their Majesties..."

 _Their_ Majesties? Strange, but then, plenty of people in Lestallum liked to talk about the Queen and Prince like they were just on an extended vacation, and could come marching through the Citadel doors any second. Maybe Mr. Scientia was the same. "You related to Ignis?" Noct asked.

"My nephew. Sir, if I may--"

"Thanks," Noct said. He scanned the crowd, trying to make sense of the swirling chaos. "I appreciate the help."

"Sir--" the man's voice disappeared in the tide of voices as Noct plunged into the crowd. He was glad for whatever illusion Ardyn had worked on his clothes--He fit in perfectly with the glittering, laughing crowd, and no one seemed to realize that he shouldn't have been there. A servant pushed a glass in his hand, and he took a pastry off a tray with another, careful of the crumbs spilling on his gloved fingers.

Glauca was nowhere to be found. Neither was Caligo or Loqi. He caught sight of a tall, muscular man in a black mask and lurched for him, but got turned around and ended up shoved into the shadow of a pillar. For someone used to spending most of his time in a large, mostly empty manor, it was all starting to merge into a massive puzzle in Noct's head. He pushed back against the wall, and felt a door give under his shoulder. Noct took one last look at the stunning hall before him and slipped into a blissfully dim-lit hall.

The hall was more of a gallery than anything, lined with heavy oil paintings on one side, plush couches on the other. Noct let out a gusty sigh and leaned on the wall, clutching his uneaten pastry.

"That's a comforting sign," said a low, soft voice in the darkness. Noct jumped. A man sat on one of the couches a few meters away, a glossy cane propped on his side, pointed shoes polished to an expert shine. His grey hair was almost silver, but he didn't seem all that old, really. Worn, maybe, or tired, like the grocer who always slipped Noct an extra piece of candy or fruit in the regular shipment. They had the same shadow to their eyes, and it set Noct at ease, just a little.

"It's kind of a lot," Noct said. The man smiled. "Are parties always like that here?"

"You wouldn't imagine," the man said.

"Is it okay if I sit down?"

The man's eyes crinkled in amusement. "Please."

Noct sat on the other end of the couch. Before them hung a painting of a house in the woods, covered in wildflowers and creeping moss, with a woman lounging in the foreground with a lap harp. Noct took a sip from his glass and winced. Alcohol. He'd never gotten a taste for it at the estate, not with Caligo watching the storeroom like a hawk. He set his drink down and picked at his pastry.

"Forgive me," the man beside him said, "but am I right in the assumption that you're taking the Ordeal this weekend?"

"Oh." Noct swallowed what had to be the best goddamn bite of cherries and puffed dough in his life. "Yeah. Before you say anything, I know it's dangerous. I've been warned."

"Not enough, it seems," the man said. "Why take that risk?"

Noct shrugged. "I'm Lucian, so I'm kind of invested. It'd suck if the throne went to someone who didn't care, you know?"

"And you do?"

"Well, yeah." Noct shoved the rest of the pastry in his mouth. "Oh my gods, have you tried this?"

"I can't say I have." The man was only smiling a little, his eyes fixed on Noct. "So you're a patriot."

"I wouldn't go that far," Noct said, through a mouthful of cherry. "It's just... My mom was a royalist, so I get it. It's kind of important that the Wall stays up. But if someone else comes along who, I dunno, doesn't have the country's best interests in mind... You know there aren't any police outside the Wall, right?"

The man nodded. "I am aware."

"So like, all we got are MT patrols from the empire. Just these huge airships full of screaming robots, dropping out of the sky. Can you imagine? Sometimes they kill people. Sometimes they just block off streets. Sometimes they, I don't know, pick a house, and they go in, and if you're lucky you make it out alive--"

"I haven't heard of that practice," the man said. His brows were knit, and he searched Noct's face carefully, as though trying to spot a lie.

"Well, it happens." Noct clenched his hands on his knees. "But people in Insomnia aren't interested in expanding the army or making a peacekeeping force that isn't the Kingsglaive. It's nice here. Safe. But say someone takes over who doesn't care? Someone who says, yeah, let the Empire take over everything but Insomnia, because it's Insomnia that matters, and it's not like the people out there aren't used to it anyways?"

"We wouldn't allow that to happen," the man said.

"It's already happening," Noct said. "It's happening everywhere. And it'll get a hell of a lot worse if the king dies."

The man beside him folded his hands on his lap. "That, at least, won't happen for some time."

"Oh. Good." Noct leaned back on the cushions. "I always kind of liked the king. Mom told me that when he was crowned, the ring fucked him up, so he threw up all over his girlfriend's shoes--"

"Oh, gods," the man whispered. Noct grinned.

"Wait, you're from Insomnia, right?" Noct asked. "Was it true?" The man glanced away. "Shit, it was. He actually threw up in front of the whole city."

"And you find this _likable?_ " the man asked.

"Hey, it means he's human, not some old rich guy sitting on a throne somewhere. Did he really set fire to someone's wig when he was a kid?"

"For the record," the man said, turning to Noct, "it was a terrible wig, and I'd say that the man wearing it deserved it."

Noct snorted.

"He was a lord of a minor house. My--Aulea hated him. He was courting her mother at the time, you see. She said, _Here you go, Reggie, if you ever want to defend my honor, now's your chance,_ and I--"

The door opened, letting in a pool of light that spilled over the floor. A dark figure stood in the doorway, a hand lightly touching the frame.

"Your majesty," the figure said. "It's time."

"Ah." The man next to Noctis pushed himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. Noct scrambled up, almost knocking over his glass, and dropped to his knees.

"Oh dear," said King Regis Lucis Caelum, looking down at Noct with a sad smile. "We were having such a nice conversation, too."

"Your majesty," Noct managed to choke out. "I'm sorry, I didn't..."

"Don't apologize," King Regis said. "It was a pleasure to have a citizen speak to me in such a candid manner. On your feet, son. I'll be announcing the start of the Ordeal soon." He winked, and Noct grabbed the couch cushion, rising on shaking legs. "You wouldn't want to be late."

 

\---

 

King Regis walked through the crowded hall like a shark through minnows, slow and sure, hardly sparing a glance at the people who bowed and shuffled out of his way. Noct followed in his wake, trying to see a hint of the smiling, curious man he'd spoken to a minute before, and came up against a wall. The man Noct saw step onto the dais at the head of the room had an edge to his expression, a hardness to his mouth, a sense of danger that wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak of thorns. It made Noct think of the barbs on a catfish, or the bright red rings on snakes that lurked in the blackberry bushes. No one dared to touch him. No one even looked at him head-on, no one but Noct, who was unaware of the way the crowd kept a slight berth around him as well, giving way before his feet.

Four men stood before the dais, feet apart, heads held high. Noct slipped into a small gap between two of them: A tall, well-muscled man about his age, and an older man with the look of Galahd in his face and a soldier's bearing. The older man was staring straight ahead, expressionless, but the one on Noct's right offered him a quick, mirthless smile.

"Candidates to the crown," the king said. The four men bowed, and Noct bowed a beat behind them, glancing over the younger man's shoulders to get a look at a gangly young man in black, and a silver-haired man in the colors of Tenebrae.

"My king," they said, just as Noct said, "Your majesty." Someone behind him let out a bark of embarrassed laughter, and heat rose to his neck. The man on his left looked his way for a fraction of a second, and the king's eyes softened, just a little, before they took on the same cold expression as before.

"Ravus Nox Fleuret, Prince of Tenebrae," King Regis said. There were more whispers at that, though Noct couldn't say why. Glauca and Caligo only called Ravus a prince when they were mocking him, but this felt different, somehow. Still, Ravus' lips were pinched tight, and there was a sharp, fierce anger in the way he held himself.

So much for anonymity, anyways. Maybe the masks were supposed to be symbolic--It wasn't like any of them looked remotely alike.

"Ignis Scientia, son of House Scientia." Ignis bowed again, too quickly this time. He held his hand close to his chest, but Noct could see his fingers shake as they pressed the fabric of his jacket.

"Gladiolus Amicitia, son of House Amicitia." Gladiolus bowed as well. His black uniform was a simpler version of Cor's, and unbuttoned as low as possible. His hands were clenched too tight to tremble.

The king paused. "Ash," he said.

Noct bowed. "Of Lestallum," he added, and the crowd broke into another round of whispers. "No house, your majesty."

The king raised a hand to his mouth for a second, and Noct saw his lips twitch under his fingers. "Of Lestallum," he repeated, his voice grave.

There was a faint huff, and Noct looked to Ravus, who was staring at him with open disdain. Noct smiled brightly, and Ravus looked away.

"Nyx Ulric, son of Galahd," the king said.

Nyx bowed. "An honor, your majesty," he said.

The king nodded, and turned to address the room at large. "Five stand before you today. In two days' time, one will bear the ring of the Lucii, and will begin the training necessary to the protection of Lucis and the burden of the crown. Now. Let us take a moment to honor those of royal blood whose lives were lost in this very room, as they faced the judgment of the ring and were found wanting." He cleared his throat. "Princess Elendra Lucis Caelum, whose heart turned to ice. Prince Kal Lucis Caelum, who fell to an apoplexy of the brain. Prince Gregor Lucis Caelum, who succumbed to fire. Prince--"

Gods. Noct stood in silence as the king listed off the deaths of over twenty princes, princesses, dukes and duchesses, his cold gaze fixing on each candidate in turn. Noct knew what he was trying to do, but as his voice went on, relentless and steady, Noct couldn't help the anger that rose in his throat. If Niflheim weren't out to build a second Solheim, the ring of the Lucii could've been buried with the first king. None of those people would have died just because a magical rock in a twisted lump of metal deemed them unworthy. Suddenly, the thought of King Regis throwing up all over his girlfriend's shoes didn't seem so amusing anymore.

"Tomorrow morning," the king said, when the last name was read into a breathless silence, "the five of you will be summoned to the throne room, where the first trial of your Ordeal will begin. If you wish to remove yourself from the Ordeal, speak to one of our staff at any time. The gods go with you," he said.

"Walk in light," the others chorused.

"Walk..." Noct bit his tongue and bowed. The king turned from them, a clear dismissal, and Noct raised his brows as Ignis spun on his heel. He strode into the crowd, his shoulders strangely tense, and Gladiolus shifted on his feet, a hand upraised. Noct searched the other men one more time, trying to memorize the faces behind their masks, and took off after Ignis.

He found him in an ornately decorated bathroom, heaving over a toilet in an open stall. Noct hesitated for a second, then stepped up to Ignis' side.

"Oh, hell," Ignis moaned.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Noct said. He knelt next to Ignis and put a hand over his bangs, pushing them out of his eyes. "It's not like you threw up in front of anyone important."

"Pure dumb luck, I'm afraid," Ignis said. He retched again, and Noct rubbed his back. "Gods. You must think me a coward."

"Not really. I don't blame you. But, uh. Why..."

"It's a promise," Ignis said. He sat back on his heels. "Between Gladio and I. Whichever one of us succeeds, the other will be his Shield."

"But if the other one--"

"Don't," Ignis said. "Don't say it."

They knelt there a moment, Ignis breathing heavily, Noct looking into the shadowed eyes behind his mask. If he and Gladio made a deal between themselves, they probably weren't in Glauca's pocket. Probably. "Come on," he said. "I bet Captain Ravus is waiting his turn."

"Prince," Ignis said. "Only Niflheim sees him as a captain."

"Not even that," Noct said, hauling Ignis to his feet. "Out beyond the Wall, everyone knows what he really is. Just a traitor the Nifs let live."

Ignis stiffened in his hold, and Noct looked up. Ravus Nox Fleuret stood in the doorway, his eyes dark, a hand clenched at his side. When he spoke, his voice was tight and short.

"A commoner would know all about treachery," he said. "People like you sell their loyalties to the highest bidder."

"Yeah?" Noct said. "And how much do they pay you, Captain? You volunteered. Volunteered to join the army that killed your _mother--"_

"Ash," Ignis hissed.

"I would never," Noct said, swallowing around a heavy lump in his throat, " _never_ choose that. If I could, I would have... I would have _killed_ them before I became one of them."

"Don't you dare presume to pass judgment on me," Ravus said. "You know nothing of what I am."

"I know all I need to," Noct said. He ignored Ignis' insistent whispers in his ear. "If you betrayed your own country, like hell I'll let you betray mine."

Ravus crossed the room in two strides, bearing down on Noct quicker than Glauca in a rage. Ignis' shout echoed off the walls as Noct was grabbed by the collar and shoved into a mirror, which cracked under the force of the blow. Noct was dimly aware of Ravus snarling something into his ear, but he was already drifting off, closing his mind to the pain like he always did when he pissed off Glauca or Caligo to the point of breaking. He grabbed Ravus' hands, twisting his fingers back, and fell onto the counter as Ravus was jerked out of his line of sight, thrown to the floor in a mess of expensive cloth and fury.

"That's enough," someone said. Noct tipped his head back, breathing hard, and flinched at a hand on his shoulder. "Shit. Sorry. You okay?"

"Sorry," Noct said. "Sorry, I. I didn't." He couldn't breathe. He kept bracing himself for pain, for a boot on his neck, a hand in his hair, but it didn't come. It was like constantly missing the first step of a stair, stumbling and tripping over his own feet.

"The fuck did you do?" Gladiolus. That's who it was. Gladio, the man who'd made a dumbass promise with Ignis over the crown. Noct blinked hard and slid to his feet off the bathroom counter. Shards of mirror fell with him, shattering on the floor.

"The brat provoked me," Ravus said.

"And you hit him? Real fucking kingly of you," Gladio said.

"The ring will weigh this on your account," Ignis said, and Ravus paled, drawing himself up to his full height. "You should go."

"Sorry about that," Noct said, as Ravus stalked out, shoes clacking on the tile. "Guess he kind of touched a nerve."

"Something he said?" Gladio asked.

"More like who he is."

Gladio and Ignis exchanged a wary look. Noct sighed and adjusted his mask. "See you in the morning, I guess. Thanks for stepping in."

He left them standing alone in the bathroom, hunching his shoulders as he passed through a crowd of curious onlookers at the door. His own stomach lurched as he walked, rolling from the aftershocks of adrenaline, and he felt that same sick twist in his chest that he always got when Glauca started going on about how he _deserved_ what he got, how it was inevitable, how anyone could look at him and see how low he really was. And Ravus had seen it too, hadn't he?

Noct blinked into the light of the hall and ground his teeth together. He needed to find Nyx, and try and figure out his motivations, who might be pulling his strings, but all Noct really wanted was to go home. Home to Lestallum, to the small apartment that smelled like old paint and bread frying, to his mother's hands picking at the threads of her latest work. He turned away, heading back into the dark hallway where he'd met the king, and sat in a couch at the far end where the light didn't reach. There, he drew up his legs and lay on the soft cushions, staring into the heavy brushstrokes of a man's portrait until even that began to blur, and the darkness of sleep finally closed in.


	4. Chapter 4

That night, Noct dreamt of Glauca’s voice.

“If their temperament isn’t compatible, ban them from wearing the ring.” Glauca sounded softer, somehow, his voice gruff, less sharp and clipped than it usually was when he woke Noct with a bucket of water and a slew of extra chores. Noct struggled to an elbow as the darkness around him took form, and his chest seized as he found himself staring at a painting that didn’t exist in the estate. It was a portrait of a man being held up by his wrists, his face haggard and worn, golden light streaming down from a corner of the frame.

Right. Noct was in the Citadel, just outside the great hall where he’d been announced to the world. His vision swam, and he lifted his head to the sound of boots on marble.

“Ravus, perhaps,” said the voice of the king. Gods, he had to be dreaming, if the king was talking with Glauca. “The ring is… to say that it is unkind is to imply that it has the capacity for kindness. It doesn’t care what trauma could have shaped you. It is an imperfect judge at best, and for men like Ravus, who use anger as a patch over a dam…”

“What about the newcomer?” Glauca was close, now. Too close. “I didn’t get a good look at his face from where I stood.”

“He seems like a good sort,” King Regis said. “It’s a shame that he’s so determined to see this through. I would spare him the pain of it.”

“Not the others, though?”

Noct pressed his back to the side of the couch and closed his eyes. For a moment, the king sounded more exhausted than Noct felt. “I’d spare them all if I could,” he said. “Of course.” But his voice was vague, and Glauca seemed to catch on.

“You favor him already,” Glauca said. He laughed, and it was a strange, unfamiliar sound, one Noct hadn’t heard in the walls of the estate. “Astrals, Reg. You always did root for the underdog.”

They were too close for Noct to run without being spotted, but if Glauca passed him, Noct would be caught anyways. The door was only a few feet away, cracked open to the grey light of the adjacent corridor. If he could reach it, maybe he could run fast enough—

Heat prickled in Noct’s palms. It felt like it had when the airship lifted off the estate lawn, his skin buzzing with pins and needles, and Noct pressed himself closer to the couch as the footsteps came closer. _Please, gods, don’t see me,_ he thought. _Don’t see me. Don’t see me._

Two pairs of legs passed the couch, their steps measured, the point of a cane clacking a beat ahead of them. Noct held his breath. The king was back to the man Noct had met earlier, his shoulders less stiff, his head tilted slightly, but Glauca… Glauca was wearing Lucian black, in a uniform modeled like Cor’s, with blades embroidered at the collar. He leaned towards the king and murmured something, and the king laughed.

They didn’t see him. Noct held his breath until they’d passed through the door, then slowly lifted himself to an elbow.

The second worst day of Noct’s life had been an ordinary Thursday, when he was thirteen years old. He had a few minutes to himself to fish, so he’d taken off his shoes and was trying to tease some trout out of a shady hollow near a tree root when he was yanked out of the river by his collar. He thrashed in Glauca’s hold, but Glauca dragged him up the bank and onto the grass, where Noct staggered barefoot under his glare.

“What the hell?” Noct’s voice ended in a sputtering wheeze as he was thrown on his back, heaving for breath around a tight knot of pain in his chest. Glauca stepped over him, and slowly, carefully, laid a foot on his windpipe.

In the end, it was Caligo who stopped him. Caligo who pulled Glauca off, leaving Noct to gasp and whine in the dirt while Glauca hissed something about _twenty-six dead_ and _uses my people as fodder while this boy cools his heels._

“We need him,” Caligo said. “We need him alive.”

“We don’t need him whole.”

It had been about the king. It always was, those days when Glauca whipped Noct for something as pointless as dust on a bottom drawer or a dish in the sink. Glauca hated King Regis with a will that extended to any Lucian in kicking distance, and there was no reason for him to be walking with the king, laughing like an old friend. Ravus must have hit Noct harder than he thought. Noct came to in the dark, curled up with his head in his hands, and he looked out at the empty hall.

He knew who he _wanted_ Glauca’s candidate to be, but Glauca was the man who had killed the Queen of Tenebrae when Noct was just a kid, still getting used to the long, impossible list of chores he had to follow. Ravus might’ve turned traitor himself, but he couldn’t have been _that_ far gone. So that just left Nyx, another man from Galahd, with his blank expression and perfect posture. Noct got up off the couch and winced as his sore back protested.

The great hall, when he came back in, was almost empty. Servants ran back and forth with chairs, empty glasses, and brooms, but there were no straggling guests, no wide skirts to trip him up or sea of faces to blur with the lights overhead. Even the chandeliers were dimmed, and when Noct slunk towards the wide double doors at the end of the hall, a woman in a black ponytail stopped him.

“Sir,” she said.

“Noct,” Noct said, before he could stop himself. The woman blanched. “I mean. Shit. Sorry. I’ll go.”

“Oh, no, it isn’t…” The woman skirted around a row of chairs to keep up with him, holding a broom and dustpan in her arms. “It’s the Marshal, sir. He’s been looking for you. I think the other candidates were shown to their rooms when the party ended.”

“We have rooms?” Noct asked. “Are they all together?” If they were, maybe he could find Nyx. The woman shrugged helplessly.

“You’ll have to ask the Marshal,” she said. “Wait here a minute, okay?” She ran off, leaving her broom and pan by a chair, and Noct stood awkwardly, drumming his hands on the back of it.

Another side door opened not even a minute later, and Cor Leonis strode through, his uniform jacket unbuttoned to show off a lumpy sweatervest patterned with skulls. He caught Noct’s eye and turned towards him, and Noct drew himself up, swallowing thickly.

“Thank the gods,” Cor said. “I was about to tell the king that we lost a candidate. You okay, kid?” He lifted a hand, and Noct instinctively rocked back. Cor’s brows lowered. “Ignis and Gladio told me that you had an argument with Prince Ravus. If he hurt you, you have a right to charge him. Injuring a citizen of the crown is a serious offense.”

“I’m fine,” Noct said. The last thing he needed was to get distracted. “Anyways, I provoked him.”

“He’s not the one who got thrown into a mirror, kid.” Cor waved Noct on. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room. I know you probably already have a place, but it’s a security issue.”

Noct followed a step behind Cor. “So. Can you say what these trials are going to look like?”

Cor grimaced. “There’s a physical tomorrow. Then there’s a… simulation. It’s hard to explain. I tested it out myself. So did the king. Should be safe.”

“Should be?”

Cor glanced back at him. “Why? You having second thoughts?” Noct pinched his lips together, and Cor sighed. He stopped at a door flanked by two guards in Lucian black, and looked Noct in the eyes. “There’s no shame in dropping out, kid.”

“Thanks,” Noct said, pushing past Cor to open the door. “But I’ll be fine. I have to do this, Marshal. I don’t really have a choice.”

“That’s not true,” Cor said. Noct smiled ruefully, a hand on the doorframe. Again, Cor looked momentarily stunned, his eyes narrowing, hand drifting to his earpiece.

“Goodnight, Mr. Leonis,” Noct said, and closed the door gently in the Marshal’s face.

 

\---

 

Despite his best efforts, Noctis woke with the sun. He hadn’t been aware enough the night before to truly appreciate the large, plush bed in the far end of the room, or the couch near the fireplace with a stack of books piled neatly on a marble end table. Everything had skull or bird embellishments, which took some getting used to, but Noct recognized a tapestry by the window as something his mom embroidered once, featuring a fenced-in unicorn. It was a pretty popular design, but Noct still smiled at the thought of it. He wondered if the person who wove the one in his room was still around. Maybe if his mom had lived, she could’ve sold her work to the Citadel—She was good enough, in Noct’s dim memory of her.

There were clothes in the dresser, too, a little big but manageable, all in varying shades of black. Noct picked out a shirt and some pants, which rose just a little over the tops of his boots, and went in search of a shower.

He was just drying off when someone knocked on the door. “Hold on!” he shouted, stumbling into his new clothes. He dragged on his boots at the door and shoved it open with a shoulder, and looked up into the impassive face of Nyx Ulric, son of Galahd.

“They’re having breakfast downstairs,” he said, in lieu of greeting. Something like a smirk played on his lips at the sight of Noct doubled over, hands on his laces. “So everyone can stare at us some more. The captain sent me up to let you know.”

“Oh, thanks,” Noct said, tying up his boots. Nyx also wore the same dark clothes, a far cry from the uniform he’d worn the night before. “Nice of you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Nyx said, stepping back to let Noct through. “His highness is down there. Personally, I’d rather be back in the underground, eating off a food truck somewhere.”

“Why don’t we?” Noct asked. Nyx blinked at him slowly, the blank look slipping back over his face like a mask. “I mean, we don’t have to go downstairs, right?”

“I don’t,” Nyx said. “You do. Prince Ravus is supposed to apologize.”

Noct groaned, and Nyx patted him on the back. When Noct jumped forward at the contact, Nyx looked him over, the edge of his mouth twisting slightly. “You said you’re from Lestallum? I was out there a few years back, on a mission. Nice place.”

“Yeah,” Noct said. So Nyx had been close, once. Close enough to meet with Glauca, or other officers from Niflheim? He set off at a brisk pace, following Nyx down a low set of stairs. “Looks like we’re the only commoners in a group full of lords and princes, huh?”

“Speak for yourself, kid. I’m from Galahd. We’ve had so many old kings and queens on the islands at this point that half of us can say we’re one-thirtieth royalty.”

“Oh, excuse me, your highness,” Noct said. He gave him a mocking bow. “One commoner, then.”

Nyx grinned, and Noct stuck his hands in his pockets. “So you _are_ human. You looked kind of like a statue last night.”

“I get like that when I’m in front of the king,” Nyx said. “It’s that or freeze up completely.”

“I dunno, seemed kind of frozen to me.” Noct almost turned down the wrong hallway, and Nyx stopped himself from touching his arm at the last second, gesturing instead.

Nyx sighed. “It’s always been like that. You know he was on the ground during the attack on Galahd?” Noct had heard more than he ever cared to hear of the fall of Galahd from Glauca, but he forced himself to nod. “He saved my life there. My sister had just… Things were bad, up there, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. Thought I’d take out a whole ship of MTs by myself. The king had to drag me back behind the front lines on his own.”

They stopped at a door inlaid with gold skulls and silver ravens. Nyx ran a hand over one of them, tracing the delicate feathers. “Hard not to get tongue-tied in front of someone like that. Besides, it makes for a hell of a poker face, don’t you think?”

Noct hung back as Nyx opened the door and stepped through, walking amid a set of large round breakfast tables. _This_ was Glauca’s choice? Maybe he’d picked Ravus after all, or Nyx was just a good liar. And who was the captain he talked about? Glauca’s Lucian identity? Noct jogged after Nyx, pulling up a chair between him and Gladio and Ignis.

He didn’t learn much more over breakfast. Nyx was personable and talkative, comparing guard-duty stories with Gladio and answering Ignis’ probing questions about what it was like to work in the Kingsglaive. Noct watched most of it in silence, too focused on tearing his way through a plate piled high with the best fucking bacon in the goddamn universe.

After a few minutes of this, Nyx leaned down to whisper in Noct’s ear. “Might want to stop there,” he said. “I got sick my first few weeks here, thinking I shouldn’t waste anything.” Noct flushed, setting down his fork, and tried not to stare as Nyx grilled Gladio for embarrassing stories about the Crownsguard.

The only truly awkward part of breakfast came at the end of it, when Prince Ravus appeared at Noct’s elbow, looking like a man with a knife in his back.

“Ash,” he said.

“Wow,” Noct said. “That sounded painful.” He yelped as Ignis stamped on his foot.

“I request a moment alone,” Ravus said.

“In view,” Gladio added. Ravus shot him a withering look, but Gladio just stared back, crossing his arms with deliberate care. Ravus nodded tightly, and Noct eased out of his chair. They crossed to an empty table just far enough for their voices not to reach, and Ravus closed his eyes as though bracing himself.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Noct said. “It doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t really sorry.”

Ravus pinched the bridge of his nose. “You _insist_ on being a—no. No, I should not have sunk to your level last night, and I won’t do that here. I apologize.”

Noct whistled low. “Wow.”

“What did you expect?” Ravus asked, color rising in his cheeks. “You called me a traitor to my people.”

“Are you?” Noct asked. Ravus opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Seriously, just tell me. Are you?”

“As though you would believe me,” Ravus said. He drew himself up another impossible inch. “I would not have joined the Empire,” he said, in a thin voice, “if I had any other option.”

There was a long silence. Noct regarded Ravus, thinking of what he’d overheard King Regis say the night before. “Your sister’s still alive,” he said at last. Ravus looked at him in alarm, clearly shaken by the sudden turn. “She’s the Oracle now, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Ravus said.

“I hear she always has a guard with her,” he said, working through snatches of conversation he’d overheard at the estate. “For her safety.”

“Yes,” Ravus said again. A cord tightened in his neck. “For her safety.”

Noct took a deep breath. “My mom was killed when I was a kid, too,” he said, twisting his hands behind his back. “If she’d lived—“

“Gods above, don’t try and pity me,” Ravus said, a hint of the usual venom back in his voice. He drew back as though Noct were carrying an infectious disease. “The empire has no hold over a person like you.”

“Fuck you too, then,” Noct said, louder than he meant to. He heard the scrape of a chair being pushed aside, and turned on his heel. The hell was wrong with him? He never talked about his mother to anyone, and here he’d gone and offered her memory to a pompous, egotistical—

Terrified—

No. It didn’t matter. If Ravus wanted to go it alone, that was fine. He was a prince, anyways. Someone with power and influence, no matter who was watching. Noct was just a servant. A commoner. Someone to fetch and carry and clean up after Caligo and Glauca, after his mother’s murderer, after the people who ordered their capture.

Which was strange, really. If Ravus was right, there would’ve been no reason for them to kill Noct’s mother in the first place. No reason for them to assign guards to Noct, just like… just like they assigned guards to the Oracle…

He stopped halfway back to the breakfast table, and remembered Ardyn’s knowing smile, his pointed questions, the raw, directionless anger that drove Noct to answer.

A door in the side of the breakfast room opened, and Cor Leonis appeared in a freshly-pressed uniform, looking more like a statue than Nyx at his best.

“Will the candidates step this way,” he said. Gladio stood, and Ignis reached out to touch his hand before they pushed away, walking slowly across the room. The entire Citadel seemed to be holding its breath as the five of them passed breakfast tables and crepe stations, trays of drinks and a fountain of fresh water cascading over ice. Gladio and Ignis bowed to Cor, but Ravus and Nyx remained upright, so Noct was left in an uncertain in-between state, glancing from one to the other for the right cue. Then Cor motioned them into the hall, and Noct hung back, waiting for the others to go before he slipped through. 

_The first trial,_ Noct thought, his memory of Ardyn breaking apart like steam. _The Ordeal’s finally begun._


	5. Chapter 5

The physical took place in a training room bigger than the one Noct routinely swept clean in the estate, with thick blue mats on one end and weapons displayed on the wall. Their instructor, a woman in a Crownsguard uniform named Monica, ordered them to pick a weapon. The others made for the wall with confidence, somehow able to pick out a preference from the glittering, gleaming mess of metal before them. Noct searched the wall, utterly at a loss. He'd been banned from even thinking about anything other than a kitchen knife at the estate. He reached for a sword and felt a prickle at the back of his neck, the heat of Caligo behind him, the bruising grip of gloved fingers, the fire of a lash splitting the skin of his back--

He stepped away. His breathing was ragged and painfully loud in the wide, quiet training room, and he could feel the stares boring into his back. He reached for the sword again. His fingers slipped, and the weapon went crashing to the floor, knocking an axe off its grip as it fell. Noct threw himself back just as the axe clattered next to the sword.

"Gods," Ravus said. Noct closed his eyes for a breath, then crouched to pick up the weapons.

"Here." Nyx appeared at his side, lifting the axe by the hilt. His voice was soft, barely more than a whisper. "You ever fought before?"

"Does getting my ass beat count as fighting?" Noct asked, and Nyx smiled. 

"Sure." He settled the axe back in its grip as Noct clumsily wrapped a hand around the hilt of the sword. "Sort of."

"The king of Lucis is expected to serve at least one tour in the war," Monica said. Noct glanced at the others. Ravus was holding his sword at his side. Gladio had the flat of his resting on his shoulders. Nyx and Ignis had knives. Noct looked down at his sword, which was already heavy as hell in shaking hands, and gently rested the point on the floor. Ignis winced at the sound, and Noct heaved it up again.

"Alright," Monica said. "You have an hour of free combat. If you need to switch partners at any time, inform me and I'll make arrangements. Cor, you're with Ravus."

Nyx nudged Noct's shoulder with his. "Hey. We're partnered-up."

Noct hesitated, shifting the ungainly weapon in his grip. Nyx eyed the tightness of his fingers around the hilt and sighed.

"Put it down," he said. "You said you've fought before?"

"It's a stretch, but I guess." Noct eased the sword to the floor.

"Show me how, then," Nyx said. "We'll do this your way."

"I'm not gonna show you how to kick my own ass," Noct said. Nyx laughed. It was a nice laugh, comfortable, with none of the cruel humor Noct would have expected beyond the Wall. "Look, I'll stand back, and you and Ravus can fight instead."

"No, thanks," Nyx said. "Anyways, they already know I can fight. Come on. Show me how people come at you." He stepped back, giving Noct room. Around them, the others were already in combat, blades making sharp, vicious lines through the air. Nyx set his knives down and beckoned.

"They usually come at me from behind," Noct said.

"Got it." Nyx turned around. "Try and grab me by the neck, and watch what I do."

It was the strangest hour of Noct's life. While the others roared and cursed and clashed blades with a scream of metal, Nyx guided Noct through a set of holds, twists, and blows meant to break the grip of an attacker. He showed him where to inflict the most pain with the least amount of effort, how to twist out of a headlock without breaking his neck, and how to brace himself for a hit without going tense and stiff. Noct almost forgot the others were there, lost in the touch of Nyx's hands on his arms, the calm confidence in his voice, and the thought of actually ducking out of Glauca's grasp instead of being pinned, desperate and helpless, waiting for the worst.

"That was great," Nyx said, when Monica called them to a stop. Monica was watching them, brows lowered, a knuckle pressed to her lips.

"Sure," Noct said. "I guess this means I failed the test, huh?"

"Don't sell yourself short," Nyx said. "You're stronger than you give yourself credit for. Flex your arm, like this. See that?" He pressed down on Noct's bicep. "Muscle. You're wiry, not weak. Same as the king."

Noct rolled his eyes. "Okay."

"Second trial's after lunch," Cor said. He hung Ravus' borrowed sword back on the wall. "Then it's more nonsense."

"He means another party," Gladio whispered, just loud enough for Cor and Monica to hear. Cor scowled at him darkly, and Gladio offered him a cheery grin. "You can always find Cor at one of those things by checking behind the curtains."

"And you can find _Gladio_ flirting with every creature on two legs," Ignis drawled. "Including the chicken."

"Ha, ha." 

Noct didn't fail to notice the way Ignis lay a hand on Gladio's lower back for a moment before he pulled away, striding down the hall.

He meant to seek out Ravus' room during lunch, but the moment Noct saw the massive claw-foot tub in the bathroom of his suite, he was done. His mother used to talk about baths like this _back home,_ with the kind of wistful smile she reserved for the occasional chocolate or a paid day off. Almost up to his nose in water that filled the suite with steam, Noct thought he could understand the appeal. He soaked through lunch, and a knock at the door sent him on a scrambling search for spare clothes, which meant that when he finally appeared, panting and disheveled, at the door to his rooms, his hair was dripping a river of lavender-scented bathwater down his back.

"Huh," said the woman in the black Citadel uniform. "Okay."

Noct squished his way after her, painfully aware that he had, in his frantic stumble from the bathroom, forgotten to put on socks. They crowded into a small elevator, which opened up into a hall filled with machines that crawled with a faint violet light. They looked almost like the machine in Glauca's office, but the light was stronger, more ropelike, winding through mesh screens like thread.

"It's similar to magitech," said Noct's guide, when she saw Noct staring. "But it's run by the Crystal."

"This hall must be hell to clean," Noct said, stepping around bundles of wires and humming computer towers.

"You're telling me," she said, and flashed him a grin. 

A line of masks waited for him at the door to the second trial, but these masks were bulky lumps of metal that strapped around the back of his head, forcing him to crane his neck to make up for the weight. Noct staggered in the sudden darkness, and his guide took his hand, leading him through a blast of cool air and into a room with a tile floor that gave under his feet, like the cheap carpet in his Lestallum apartment. 

The king's voice echoed around him, and Noct stumbled as his guide let go, leaving him alone in the dark. "Good afternoon," the king said. "The simulation you are about to enter is an interactive map of Eos, which can change at a touch of your will. It is imperative that you do not allow your mind to wander. Keep your thoughts to the task at hand, and if you become disoriented at any time, say the word and we will shut off the program. Good luck."

"Thanks! I have no idea what any of this means!" Noct shouted. There was static on the line overhead, the sound of muffled laughter, and a click. Then, one by one, lights began to form under Noct's feet. They bloomed and spread, a garden unfolding beneath him, forming the hills of Duscae, the desert of Leide, the rocky cliffs bordering Tenebrae, and the white expanse of Niflheim. Noct bent down and touched the shining spikes of the Meteor, checking to see if he could catch a glimpse of the Titan crouching underneath. 

Something beeped, and he looked up. Words crawled across the screen: _Niflheim invades on Tenebraean border: Cold River Skirmish_.

"Oh," Noct said. "That sucks." Smoke rose from the river, curling around Noct's ankles. "Um, send troops? I guess?"

_Kingsglaive: 27 active troops._

"Twenty-seven? Shit, no wonder the empire's taken over. Okay, send, uh, send fifteen? And recruit for an actual army. They don't need magic, they just need training."

_Protests in Insomnia. Council votes against draft._

"A volunteer army," Noct said. "Gods."

More words popped up over the hills of Duscae. No one seemed to want to volunteer. Niflheim was closing in. People in the outlands needed humanitarian aid. Noct crouched as the power plant of Lestallum threatened to blow, and tried to will the city to expand. Towers rose around him, almost up to waist height, and Noct ran a hand through the old fountain by the plaza. He'd played there while his mother went to work, racing little paper boats on the water with the other kids. His apartment was about three blocks away...

A humming ran through the click of words popping over skirmishes and disasters, low and familiar, and Noct's shoulders sagged. He knew this song, even if he didn't remember the words. It was the tune his mother used to hum at night, when she picked at threads in her tapestries while Noct rolled on their cramped bed, watching the pictures come to life.

Noct rose, and the map melted before him, reshaping itself into the alley next to Noct's old house. He scuffed his foot on the chalk drawing of a behemoth he'd made, back before it happened, and looked up at the tiny window where his mother waited for him. He could just see her shoulder through the glass, and the same daisy-patterned dress she always wore around the house.

The one she'd died in.

Noct raised a hand to the door handle.

"Ash," someone said.

He turned the knob. Darkness flooded him.

"Turn it off," someone said. He slowly ascended the steps, drawn to his mother's idle humming. "Something's gone wrong. The magic shouldn't be--"

Noct drifted to the front door of their apartment. He touched the peeling paint, and the door fell before him.

There was blood at his feet. An arm lay outstretched on the quilt his mother had made when he was three, black with gold designs in the shape of the Lucian crest. The fingers were still moving, curling in on themselves. He could save her. This time, he was strong enough. He could--

The screen went black, and Noct jerked as hands reached for the buckle around his mask. The mask slid free, and Noct stared out at a small room lined with pockmarked panels, all glowing with that faint light from the machines outside. Lestallum was gone. He'd been so close. He could almost see her.

His hair hung in his eyes, still damp from the shower, and for once, Noct was glad to hide behind it. He was led outside, where a man in a grey suit flashed a light in his eyes and checked his pulse, frowning slightly.

"Sorry," Noct said. "My mind wandered, I guess."

"This is remarkable," the doctor said. "The magic has never been so malleable. Even the king--"

She'd been right there. Noct had been close enough to touch her. He ran a hand over his face, trying to banish the memory of his apartment, of the alley, of his mother's clenching fingers. Someone asked him a question, and he nodded, waving off the doctor's hand.

"Come on, kid," said a voice. Noct looked up, and Cor was there, his face unreadable. He lay a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Let's get you out of here."


	6. Chapter 6

"Guess this is it," Noct said. He and Cor walked up a narrow stairway, lit by a high light overhead, with only their footsteps to break the silence. The walls were smooth, polished stone, and Noct ran a hand along them, savoring the cool touch on his palm.

"This is what?" Cor asked.

"It. It's over. I failed." Noct traced a nail along a groove in the stone. 

"I wouldn't say that," Cor said. Noct sighed. He was trying to let him down easy, then. "Ash." He grimaced.

Noct took a deep breath. Here it was. 

Cor glanced at him sidelong. "I can imagine what this would look like," he said, in a slow, careful voice, "if the prince were still alive. It'd seem like the king has moved on."

"I guess," Noct said.

"We all..." Cor cleared his throat. "None of us have, you know." Noct paused, unsure how to react. It was strange, seeing a man like Cor the Immortal standing there, with that lost, almost pained look in his eyes. 

“The prince was my godson,” Cor said. “Or he would’ve been.” 

There was nothing Noct could say to that. He kept climbing. Cor cleared his throat again, louder this time. “Where are your parents in all this?” 

“Dead,” Noct said. 

“Both of them?” Cor’s voice was oddly distant. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I don’t know about my dad,” Noct said. Cor’s shoulders stiffened slightly, drawing taut. “Mom wouldn’t... Wouldn’t talk about him."

She'd loved him, though. Noct could tell, even through the cold, uncomfortable silence that fell over the apartment when she sank into one of her rare fits of melancholy. The love she felt for Noct's father came to her as a shadow over her eyes, a pain Noct didn't recognize until she was gone, until he was alone in the estate with nothing to remember her by.

"He has to be dead," he said. "She would've found him if he wasn't."

They reached the top of the stairs at last, which ended at a simple metal door. Cor laid a hand on the handle and turned to Noct. “Kid." His voice cracked, and he rubbed the back of his neck, a blush creeping to his ears. "I moved up the last test. The king's on the other side of the door. He's been. He's been waiting a while."

Noct let out a harsh breath, his heartbeat pounding. 

Cor opened the door. “There’s a hooded cloak on the other side of the door, but I don't think you'll need it."

“Right,” Noct said, squeezing past.

He stepped out into the light of early afternoon, the sun a bright mark over a glass room that looked more like a small park than a floor of the Citadel. Willow branches swung over a manmade creek with none of the weeds or clumps of mud Noct was used to at the estate, and beds of flowers burst from the ground amid fountains and statues, all winding in a circle towards a black gazebo in the center. Noct wove through the flowers, carefully avoiding the fragile, deep blue petals on the edge of the path, and stopped at the entrance of the gazebo.

When he climbed inside, King Regis looked up from his hands.

“Good afternoon,” he said. 

“Your majesty," Noct said. "There's something I--"

"Sit," the king said. "Please." Noct sat down on the bench a few feet away. "A little closer." Noct inched as close as he could, almost brushing the king's knees with his own, and the king leaned forward, taking Noct's face in his hands. He tilted Noct’s chin, twisted his face gently from side to side, and finally, when his bewildering examination was done, smoothed down Noct’s hair. Then he drew back, and Noct leaned after him, following the touch of his hands.

"Well," King Regis said, when Noct said nothing, frozen in place by the warmth of hands in his hair. "What we’re doing is a test, of sorts. A way to determine if your body is compatible with magic.”

Something must have changed in Noct’s face, because the king’s smile softened at the edges. “You’ll be perfectly safe,” he said. “You will only be borrowing my magic, for a time.” He held out his hands. “If you’re ready, son.”

Noct scooted closer, his knees knocking into Regis’, and lay his hands on the king’s. Regis wrapped his fingers around Noct’s. “Close your eyes.” Noct obeyed. 

Somewhere in the eaves of the gazebo, a bird sang. A breeze blew through the grasses around them, probably from a vent or a gap in the windows, and Noct could hear the trickle of running water. The air smelled sweet, like jasmine and fresh grass, and it made Noct long for the creek behind the estate.

Regis made a short sound in the back of his throat, and Noct opened his eyes. “Strange,” Regis said. He smiled, as though he weren't surprised at all, and squeezed Noct's hands. “My magic keeps sliding away from you. I apologize, let me try again.” Noct closed his eyes a second time, and felt Regis’ hands tighten. A few more breaths. The rustle of a small creature in the flowers. The groan of pipes under their feet.

“You should be feeling numb,” Regis said. “Like your hands have gone to sleep.”

Noct opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. “Not… not really, your majesty.”

"Try summoning fire, then,” Regis said. “Fire comes easily to everyone. Picture a flame in your mind, a true flame, like one you’ll find in a fireplace or a gas stove--” They both jerked back, Noct with a yell of dismay, Regis with a strangled gasp, as Noct’s hands promptly burst into flame. 

“Shit!” Noct tried to pull his hands away, but Regis held him fast. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Breathe,” Regis said. “Look at your hands. Feel them. Do they hurt at all?”

Noct struggled to breathe properly as he forced himself to stare into the fire licking over his hands. After a moment, he realized that his skin only felt warm, not even uncomfortably so, and the fire barely touched it, stopping a fraction of an inch above the back of his hand. Regis still held him, thumbs brushing over his knuckles. “It’s… It’s okay,” he said. “I’m okay.”

Regis smiled, and for the first time since Noct had seen him, it was a true smile, broad and unguarded. “Yes,” he said. “Close your hands into a fist and picture the fire going out.” 

Noct imagined dousing the fireplace at the estate with water, and jumped back as the flames collapsed, changing shape and form, dripping onto the king’s knees in an icy torrent. “Oh, gods,” he said. “I’m sorry."

Regis laughed. "That was magnificent," he said. "Well done, Noctis. Very well done."

"I don't even know what I was--" Noct stopped, breath catching in his throat. "You said--"

"Your mother always was one for theatrics," Regis said. "I take it she's behind this?"

"Behind... What?" Noct's voice was a rasp, barely louder than a whisper.

"This," Regis said. "Where is she? I can't imagine Aulea hiding in the sidelines for long."

Horror spilled into Noct's mind, raising the gooseflesh of his arms. Regis thought he was the prince. _Cor_ thought he was the prince. This whole time, they'd been--they'd thought--

"My mom's name wasn't--" Noct choked, but Regis was slipping a hand in his pocket, pulling out a small golden clasp. He opened it, pressing it into Noct's fingers.

Noct looked down into the smiling, dimpled face of his mother.

"I'm sure she looks different, now," Regis said. "Her mother's hair was grey by fifty; That always galled her..."

Noct tried to breathe. The woman in the portrait was young, dark-haired, with Noct's eyes and narrow chin--If he tied his hair back, they could almost pass as twins. She beamed up at Noct, with the sort of wide, helpless smile she always made when she was trying not to laugh. Noct looked up at the king, and saw something of himself there, the same tilt of the brow, the feathered texture of his hair.

It was like the moment when Noct's mother's embroidery went from looping spools of thread to the shape of something real, faces and cliffs and rolling seas taking form out of spirals of small stitches on the cloth. And just as the thread followed a pattern, just as the picture already existed in the graphs his mother left on windowsills and wastebaskets, Noct found that the shape of the truth had always been there. It was easier to believe Glauca, to think that he was nothing, no one, that it had all been a mistake, a cruel twist of bad luck.

Regis' voice broke through the numb silence. "You didn't know." 

Noct closed his hands over the portrait. "I'm sorry," he said. He couldn't say what he was sorry for. For not being good enough. For refusing to see what every sneer and blow and strike of the lash should have told him, for seeking out the warmth of the sun on the dock when he should have taken Ardyn's advice. For failing the tests. For failing to even confirm the imperial mole in the ranks, for being unable to save his own mother, for the years he spent dreaming of rescue, curled tight before the kitchen fire. For everything.

"Oh, Noctis," Regis said. He brushed Noct's messy bangs out of his eyes. "Your mother isn't with you, is she?"

Noct tried to draw in breath to speak, but nothing came. He covered his face with his hand, fingers curling over his eyes, trying to pull himself together the way he'd always done, quiet and hunched, making himself as small as possible. But then there were hands on his back, and the king of Lucis--his father, his _father_ \--was holding him, a hand in his hair, the patter of tears dropping warm and soft on Noctis' shoulder.


	7. Chapter 7

"Regis?"

Noct pulled away from the king as the door opened, blocked by a mountain in black and gold leather. The man creaked towards them, the straps of his uniform swaying, and Noct hurriedly ran his fingers under his eyes, trying to compose himself.

He shouldn't have bothered.

"It's true, then?" The man cleaved straight through the flowers, scattering petals in his wake. Cor frowned after him, walking along the path, which meant Noct only had a few seconds to brace himself before the stranger was engulfing him in a bone-creaking hug. He wheezed, and the man gently set him back down. "Gods, Cor was right. You look just like her."

"I kind of forgot about that," Noct mumbled. 

"Noctis." Regis shot the man a look. "This is my shield, Clarus Amicitia."

Clarus knelt, but it didn't do much to make him less imposing. He laid his hands over Noct's. "It's good to have you back, your highness. Where have you been? Lestallum?"

"Not completely," Noct said. He glanced at Regis, then up at Cor, who was almost hidden behind Clarus. "The empire had me. Caligo and Glauca. I, uh. I broke free and snuck a ride on their ship, because they... They're planning on sabotaging the Ordeal. They have their own candidate--"

"Ravus," Clarus said.

"Poor soul," said Regis. 

"I thought I'd get asylum if I proved it," Noct said, flushing darkly. Of course they already knew. Of course they'd guessed it was Ravus from the start. "Things weren't...the best, back there. Caligo was the one who led the raid that took me."

Regis' eyes narrowed. Noct looked up at the roof of the gazebo. Jasmine blossoms peeked through the slats in the wood, trailing green vines. He wondered if his mother had sat there, once, if she'd kicked up her heels and let the soft breeze from the window stir the willows, if she'd ever brought Noct there, before she left for Lestallum. If she dreamed of flowers and high ceilings and marble stairs. 

"We'll flush them out tonight," Clarus said. "If you make an announcement, their spy will show his hand."

"Call in the Glaives, then," Regis said, and Clarus stood. "I'll have Drautos in my office before--damn, it's already starting, isn't it?"

"He's on his way," Cor said, slipping a phone in his pocket.

"Drautos?" Noct asked. He'd heard that name before, but he was still swimming through a fog, too overwhelmed to think clearly. 

“Ah, yes," Regis said. He gathered up his cane. “I’m not surprised that you haven’t met--He made himself scarce last night. No matter, he should be just outside, he was waiting for the results in any case--”

Noct drew back, dread sinking in his stomach, just as a door near a large bush of hydrangeas opened, scattering leaves.

“There he is,” the king said, as General Glauca slouched through the door, the black uniform of Lucis buttoned high to his neck. “May I introduce Titus Drautos, the captain of my Kingsglaive.”

Glauca bowed to the king, and the medals on his uniform gleamed in the sunlight. 

“Your majesty.”

Noct only just registered the slightest touch of King Regis’ right hand on his back, but it felt like a wire pinning him to the ground, lancing through his nerves while Regis smiled and spoke over Noct’s head. “Thank you for coming to my assistance on such short notice,” Regis said. “I don’t believe you’ve had the chance to meet this _particular_ candidate, have you?”

Glauca looked Noct over, his gaze lingering on the grim set of Noct’s mouth. “Oh, yes,” he said. “The one from Lestallum. It seems you were a long way from home after all, Boy.”

Noct sucked in a sharp breath, and the king looked his way, brows furrowed. He needed to answer. It would be worse, later, if he didn’t. It always was. “Yes, sir.”

Glauca smiled.

“You won’t be kept long,” Regis murmured, his hand splaying over Noct’s back. "I'll leave you in Drautos' capable hands while we deal with matters downstairs."

"No," Noct said. 

Four pairs of eyes locked on him, and Noct drew in another shaky breath. "I should come with you," he said. "It. Isn't safe. I know how Caligo and Glauca work. Especially Glauca."

"Son, you've been put at risk long enough," Regis said. "Let us bear some of the--"

"I'm sorry, your--I'm sorry," Noct said. He glanced up at Glauca, hardly daring to look him in the eye. "But Glauca's sick. Seriously sick. You know the type--the kind of guy who'd whip a kid and go and eat dinner like it was nothing, like the kid wasn't cleaning the floor where the blood spilled; A real scum-sucking bastard."

"Really," Glauca said, in a quiet voice.

Regis squeezed Noct's shoulder. "Which is..." He took a steadying breath. "Exactly why we have to keep you safe, Noctis."

"I want to be the one to kill him," Noct said, and this time, he _did_ look Glauca in the eyes.

Glauca laughed. "Gods, he _is_ your son," he said to Regis. "Come, Boy, your bloodlust will have to be sated another time." He held out a hand. "Perhaps you'll feel safer if the king accompanied you up?"

"I'll go," Cor said. He was looking at Noct with a curious, closed-off expression. "If that's alright, Noctis."

Noct jerked free of his father's hold. There was no getting around it. He could feel the heat of Glauca’s gaze on him, and knew, just _knew,_ that the moment he and the king were alone, Glauca would kill them rather than let Noct say the truth. He had to go along with it, and find a way to sneak out under Glauca's nose. Maybe... If he _hadn't_ dreamed that conversation between Glauca and the king the other night... He looked down at his hands. Magic. He had _magic._ The kind of magic that could make a terrified, half-asleep person invisible, even if only for a few seconds. Noct nodded slowly and stepped forward, into Glauca's range.

Glauca slung a heavy arm over his shoulder.

"It's good to have you home, your highness," he said, as Cor approached, his face still unreadable and strange. "Let's get you somewhere safe, then."

Which was how Noct ended up trapped in one of the most lavish bedrooms he'd ever seen, with two guards at his door and his kidnapper heading downstairs to take orders from the king.

His mother had paced these rooms, once. He wondered, as the sound of the ball downstairs drifted through the vents, what she must have thought the day she'd fled the Citadel. Whether she'd stopped at the door for a moment, whether her hand had lingered on the stone before she pushed away, if she'd looked back as she smuggled Noct out beyond the Wall. He wondered what she'd meant to save him from. The ring? People like Caligo and Glauca? Or could it have been the massive rooms and wide halls, and the silence pressing in on them, always, the loneliness of too much? 

Noct could almost smell the blood on the ballroom floor. 

He made for the window, but it was a sheer drop to the balcony four stories down. When he opened the door, the guards stationed there gently urged him back, closing it after him. And even if Noct _did_ make it down to the ballroom, he'd be spotted in seconds. "This is bullshit," he said. It wasn't like he could actually protect Regis, not when the king had a shield, Cor, and a whole company of Glaives with him. If the Glaives could be trusted. _Shit._ It had probably been Nyx all along, and here they all thought the mole was Ravus...

Someone coughed behind him. Noct whirled on his heel, but there was no one there, just his wide, ridiculous bed, the sheets rumpled and glittering in the light of the sunset. Noct squinted, inching closer, and twitched the sheets open, revealing the shine of a glorious gold and black suit, complete with a long cape and a black mask shaped like a cat's face, a sheen of gold over its eyes. Noct drew back, looking into the shadows in the corner of the room.

Ardyn?" he whispered.

Nothing. Noct picked up the mask. It fit perfectly, and the mesh over the eyes tinted the room with gold, giving it a soft, dreamlike quality. Noct changed quickly, and when he flipped the hood of the cape over his head and stared into the mirror, another man stared back, beautiful and strange, gold eyes gleaming. 

This time, when Noct opened the window, the drop to the balcony didn't seem so far after all.


	8. Chapter 8

The highest ballroom in the Citadel was a work of art in itself; Murals crawled up the walls, statues of the gods framed the ceiling with their hands upraised, and the drapes that masked the balcony glittered with a sheer silver veil over curtains dark as a moonless night. Noct pushed the curtains aside, silk sliding under his fingers, and stared out into the crowd.

A live band played on a platform by a gilded aquarium, which held a fish that looked more like a miniature Leviathan than anything Noct ever reeled in. There was food on the far end of the ballroom, and whole lines of people leaning against walls and pillars, watching the dancers and laughing into their drinks.

On the dais next to the band, King Regis sat with Clarus and Glauca. Glauca leaned in to whisper into Regis' ear, and Noct tensed, forcing himself to step out of the shelter of the balcony and into the crowd. He had to get to the--to his father. That's all this was. The dancers, with their incomprehensible patterns and whirling skirts and cloaks, didn't matter. What mattered was Regis. 

A hand gripped Noct's wrist, and he spun, fist clenched in the black uniform of Nyx Ulric.

"Didn't see _you_ come in through the door," Nyx said. Noct released him and stepped back, twisting out of Nyx's grip. Nyx sighed. "Take off the hood."

Noct backed into a dancer, who cursed and wheeled away from him, glowering darkly. "No, thanks."

Nyx reached for him again, and Noct threw himself into the crowd. He wove around the dancers, searching each masked face for Ravus, for Ignis or Gladio or Cor, but Nyx moved like a snake through the dance, and Noct found himself caught by both hands, twisted round to stare into Nyx's silver Kingsglaive mask. 

"Let go," Noct ground out, and Nyx frowned.

"Ash?" he said. "I mean. Your..." He lowered his voice. "Your highness? I thought the captain had orders to keep you safe."

"Yeah? And what orders did your _captain_ give _you?_ " Noct whispered. Nyx's brows raised.

"We were all briefed a few minutes ago," he said. "The Glaives, anyways. How'd you get here? Why did you--"

"Did he say anything else?" Noct asked. He glanced at the dais. Glauca was gazing in their direction. "Quick. Dance with me."

"What?" Nyx grunted as Noct pushed him into the line of dancers. It wasn't an easy dance to replicate, but all they needed to do was move. Noct kept a firm grip on Nyx's hands as he spun him through the crowd. Nyx winced. "He's asking me to report. Your highness, I need to respond--"

Noct reached for the earpiece hooked to Nyx's temple and wrenched it off. It clattered to the floor, and Nyx opened his mouth in outrage as another dancer kicked it into the crowd. 

"The hell are you doing?" Nyx hissed.

"Saving my dad's life," Noct whispered back. "Your captain's a traitor, Nyx."

Nyx's face reddened, lips still parted, and Noct pushed on, guiding them out of Glauca's sight. "You ever heard of Glauca? General of Niflheim?"

"Sure. I don't know what--"

"He's standing next to my dad right now," Noct said. Nyx twisted around. Glauca was frowning, a hand at his ear, gaze scanning the ballroom. Noct grabbed Nyx by the lapels of his jacket and backed them both into the shadow of a pillar. "I should know," Noct said. "He has a pretty unforgettable face."

He waited, blinking up at Nyx through the gold sheen of the mask. If Nyx was Glauca's candidate, this was when he'd turn. 

"Drautos has been fighting the empire since before I was old enough to pick up a knife," Nyx said, in a slow, careful tone. "How..."

Noct pushed him closer to the pillar, and Nyx's face darkened further still, a ruddy pink tinging his ears. "Put your hand on my back," Noct said. Nyx frowned, and Noct guided his hand behind him, rucking up his shirt under the cloak. Nyx started when his fingers bumped into the distinctive wrinkle of scar tissue, and Noct braced himself with a hand on Nyx's chest, trying to ignore the way Nyx's breath puffed in his ear. His hand traveled up, tentative and light, tracing over old scars while the ballroom swirled with color and laughter around them.

"You think I'd mistake the guy who gave me those?" Noct asked. He stepped back, and Nyx slid his hand free, his eyes gone dark. "He's got a mole in the group, Nyx. Someone he can control."

"Drautos was the one who told me to sign up for this," Nyx said. Noct looked from him to the dais, unsure how to react. He couldn't imagine Glauca as the kind of man Nyx and his father seemed to know. It was hard to believe that nothing of his true nature would creep out, that he could keep up the facade long enough for no one to see.

Maybe it helped, Noct thought, as he watched Glauca step down onto the dance floor, that he had a convenient whipping boy waiting at the estate.

"We need to get you to the king," Nyx said. He slipped out from the shadow of the pillar. "Drautos'll be looking for you, and I'm pretty sure he won't be alone."

"Caligo," Noct said. "Yeah, I know."

"Not just him," Nyx said. He took Noct's hand and guided him onto the floor. "You think we can dance our way back?"

"Badly," Noct said, and when Nyx smiled, he felt heat rise to his own cheeks. "Let's go."

They jostled their way into the throng just as the music droned to a stop. Nyx's hand was tight in Noct's, and Noct could see the tension in his jaw as he ground his teeth, his gaze flicking over the crowd. 

"Hey," Noct whispered. "About... The captain. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too." The words came out as a gusty sigh.

The king raised his hands, and the ballroom fell into waves of hushed silence, whispers falling and rising in ripples across the room. He faced the crowd, and Noct tugged at his hood.

"Thank you, friends," he said. Clarus Amicitia was behind him, a wall of muscle at his back, but Cor... Cor was nowhere to be seen. Noct stood on his toes, but he couldn't see over the fanciful masks and high collars of the crowd. "Tonight, I come bearing momentous news. I am happy to report that the heir to the throne of Lucis has indeed been found tonight. And his name..."

Noct gripped Nyx's shoulder. Ravus was inching closer to the dais, rocking on his heels. 

"Is Noctis Lucis C--"

It was like standing in the center of an earthquake. The world shifted around him, the crowd whispering, shouting, some breathless, some babbling frantically, some just holding each other, reaching out to clasp hands as though they couldn't quite believe they were awake, seeking confirmation. 

Ravus' voice was a desperate cry, half-choking with fear, and Noct found himself drawn to it with a swift, familiar horror that clamped like a vise around his throat. It was something like what Noct had heard in his own voice, on the worst days, when even Ardyn's sardonic comments could do nothing to ease the pain. Noct released Nyx, pushing through the crowd, but Ravus was already climbing onto the dais, and there was a flicker of steel in his hand, a wild look in his eye, a tremor in his fingers--

Clarus couldn't move fast enough. Noct elbowed a woman in a white gown out of the way as his father pulled back his bleeding hand, blades bursting to life around his shoulders, aimed directly at Ravus' hunched form. Ravus spoke--his words were drowned in the screams of the crowd--and he slammed the ring of the Lucii on his finger.

For a moment, nothing happened. Noct pushed forward, suddenly rushing against a crowd scattering for the doors. His cloak was caught on someone's shoe--he ripped it off, and it dissolved into dust behind him. On the dais, Ravus dropped to his knees.

Then he started screaming.

The scream was a low, horrible thing, bubbling and thick with terror, and it lanced through Noct's head, raising the hairs on his neck and arms. Smoke rose from Ravus' fingers, and his hand clenched around the ring as the first spurt of flame burst from his knuckles.

The king had stepped back, swords still hovering around him, Clarus with a hand on his shoulder. No one dared to get close to Ravus as the fire spread, racing up his arm like cracks in an old stone, boiling his blood.

Noct barreled into Ravus headfirst, knocking him into the marble floor. Ravus' scream had died down to a thin, tremulous whine, and Noct scrabbled for the ring, ignoring the heat that licked at his hands. His skin didn't bubble and burn like Ravus', but the scent of scorched flesh was thick in the air, and the ring seemed to be welded to Ravus' bones.

"Let it go," Noct shouted, placing a knee on Ravus' chest for balance. "You dumbass piece of _shit._ Who the hell are you protecting like this, huh? You think your sister wants this? You think you could've got out of this alive?" The flames beat at his face--He ripped his mask off and let it clatter on the floor. "What?" he said, looking into Ravus' mismatched eyes. "You _want_ to die?"

Ravus said nothing. He was beyond words, now--beyond thought. Noct grabbed his hand, which snapped under his fingers, and pulled the ring free of a knuckle that fell to Ravus' side. Water. Noct needed water. He could do this, he'd done this before, he'd put out a fire on his own hands--

Ice cracked under Noct's feet. It spread around him and Ravus in a nimbus of frost, which crawled up Ravus' side and bubbled into steam. Noct rolled to the side, coughing, as the last of the fire died away, and Ravus' arm crumbled to ash and bone, there amid the wreckage of Ravus' last desperate chance.

The ring of the Lucii was cold against Noctis' palm.

"Son," Regis said. Noct looked up, covered in soot and frost and the browning stain of blood, and the lights of the ballroom went out.


	9. Chapter 9

The darkness didn't last long. Lights flickered to life all across the ballroom--Cellphone flashlights, smart watches, utility lights on the belts of Crownsguard and Kingsglaive soldiers, strobing and bobbing like shrimp boats out at sea. King Regis' magic surrounded him in a faint glow, and Noct could just see the lines of his cheekbones in the darkness. 

A hand grabbed at his neck, and Noct clenched his hand around the ring. He twisted, but the hand loosened as a large shape pushed into view, light shining off the steel edge of his blade.

"Cor." That was Glauca, still trying to sound affable. "It's me. We need to secure the prince."

"Don't touch him," Cor said. "I've been watching you all night, Titus. Your majesty, something's wrong."

Glauca laughed, that low, awful chuckle that always heralded a blow, and Noct stood over Ravus. "Cor," he said. "He's gonna--"

Cor grunted as Glauca's first blow struck. The violet light of magitech raced through the patch of shadow where he'd jabbed an elbow in Cor's throat, outlining the thick, impenetrable armor Glauca only wore when he wanted his blows to _stick._ Noct tried to lurch forward, but a large hand pulled him back, into Clarus Amicitia's arms. 

"Alright, Caelums," he said. His voice rumbled in his chest. "Gladio!"

"Sir! Dad!" 

"He's too far," Clarus said. Noct cringed as Cor's boot landed heavily next to Ravus' face. At this rate, he and Glauca were going to trample him. "Noctis!" Clarus' voice was a short, sharp bark, but Noct was already wriggling free. He lunged for Ravus, dragging him back from the crash of steel as Glauca--as Glauca brought Cor to his knees.

"No," Noct said.

His mother rose from the bed, a hand outstretched, grasping for Noct.

Behind him, Clarus cursed, and a flash of light burst in the air as Regis' blades intercepted a blow. Glauca took Cor by the neck.

Her body swayed a moment, held upright by the blade alone. 

"Ash?" Ravus whispered.

Noct got to his feet. The ring slipped into his boot, rattling around by his ankle, as Noct's hands burst into flame.

In the light they made, Cor's face was red with blood.

She didn't even get to cry out. 

Cor jerked on the end of Glauca's blade when it slid free, and Glauca stepped over him, bearing down on Noct.

"Alright, Boy," he said. "This has gone on long enough."

There was a shout from Regis, a roar of a cry from Clarus, and the familiar bite of a gauntleted hand at his neck, even as the fire in Noct's fingers tried to dig in the grooves of Glauca's armor. Then nothing, nothing but the dark, and the hoarse, horrible rasp of Cor's breath as he bled out on the marble dais, mingling with the heady thump of Noctis' heart.

 

\---

 

"You _fool!"_

Noct opened his eyes to a sliver of sunlight peeking through the shuttered kitchen window of the estate. There was an iron bar jammed over the wooden slats, screwed in at an angle, but Noct had to turn his head to see the bar over the second window as well. He touched his right eye and winced at a sharp flare of pain. 

A face appeared inches from his own, streaked with tears black as pitch that trickled over their mouth and chin. Ardyn's eyes were pinpricks of light in a pool of blackness, and he snarled with stained, ruinous teeth. 

"I thought," he said, "that you would be clever enough to do what must be done. To figure it out. But no, you're nothing but a fool boy, dreaming of fish and sunsets and--"

"Gods, just fuck off," Noct croaked. His whole body ached, pulses of pain going off in his joints, his sides, the back of his neck. He ran a hand over the metal collar fixed around his throat and grimaced.

"And after I used most of my strength just to see you there," Ardyn said. "You come back empty-handed."

"What the hell were you expecting?" Noct asked. He slowly got to his feet. He was still wearing the black of Lucis, which he was surprised to find almost comforting, and he ran a hand over the front of his shirt. 

"My father's the king," he said, in a vague, faraway voice. He lifted his hands and tried to summon fire, but nothing came. 

"Figured it out, did you?" Ardyn moved in short, jerky steps, leaving faint echoes of his silhouette in his wake. 

"You knew?" Noct asked. He turned on Ardyn, but nothing was there, just the empty kitchen, embers still smoldering in the hearth. Above him, Noct heard voices, muffled and faint but distinctive enough to set his nerves on edge. Glauca and Caligo, arguing somewhere near the front hall.

Noct wrapped a hand around the chain keeping him in place. Something in the estate was blocking his magic. It had to be, otherwise Noct would've accidentally sent fire after Caligo and Glauca years ago. He quickly ran through the rooms of the estate in his head. It had to be somewhere protected, somewhere he couldn't go without permission.

The office. Noct usually felt off-kilter in Glauca's office, teetering at the edge of nausea, but he'd always chalked it up to fear. Still, there was that computer tower in the corner, the one that seemed unconnected and useless, humming and rattling away.

The chain groaned. Noct braced his foot on the wall of the kitchen and waited for Caligo and Glauca's voices to drift off. Instead, they stopped altogether at the sound of the doorbell clanging, heavy and insistent.

Noct pulled at the chain with all the force of a life spent hauling water and supplies and mulch, with legs made strong with climbing stairs and running after his captors, with anger buried so shallow that he could feel the shape of it in his hands. The hook that bore the chain bulged against the wall. Plaster cracked around the screws, and Noct braced both feet on the ground in one last, desperate drag.

On the third ring of the bell, the chain broke from the wall with a clatter of metal and a rain of dust from the ceiling. Noct hunched over the chain, heaving for breath, and slowly unwound the chain from the warped, broken hook. It slithered free, and he wrapped it around his arm, since it was fixed too tightly to the collar to easily remove.

Carefully, listening for footsteps outside, Noct leaned down and slipped his free hand in his boot. He found what he was looking for in seconds--the ring of the Lucii, cold and light in his hand, the small crystal at its heart bathed in the blue glow of magic.

Could the machine upstairs have blocked the ring, too? Noct could feel the magic radiating from its core, a pulse like a heartbeat in his fingers. He thought of the people it had laid low, of Ravus burning in the ballroom, of the way the king's hand had trembled when he gripped his cane.

Somewhere upstairs, his mother's murderers were waiting.

Noct took one more long, unbroken breath, and slipped on his father's ring.

The ring was warm on Noct's finger, and fit loosely just below the knuckle, too large for his skinny fingers. Light shone from the stone at its heart, blue and purple with small, stuttering thunderclouds of red, flickering around his hand like a nebula.

It was the only light in the universe.

 _Who kneels before us?_ A voice boomed in his mind, echoing like the rattle of a shout in an empty room. 

_A child,_ another voice said. Noct looked up, but all he could see was a glimmer in the dark distance, the mere suggestion of light.

 _A slave,_ said another.

"I'm not..." Noct fell silent. His voice was deeper, somehow. Older. "I'm not either."

 _Are you?_ This voice came from behind. Noct refused to turn. _Royal blood runs in your veins, but your arms are made strong not by service to the crown, but servitude to your mother's killers._

 _Cowardice,_ the first voice said.

Noct looked down at the ring pulsing in his hand. "A coward wouldn't put this on," he said.

 _Enough,_ said a new voice, soft and faint. _Son of Lucis. Let us examine your faults._

Noct fell back as a wind pushed through him, a heavy arrow of it jolting into his chest. It spread like fire, heat rising in his hand and along the tendons of his left leg, making his knees buckle. He fell to his arms, tucking his legs beneath him as the fire raged through every nerve and bone, consuming him. 

_It could be resilience,_ someone said, through the roaring in Noct's ears.

_Or self-preservation._

_He has his mother's loyalty, at least._

_And her recklessness?_

_A son's sins,_ said the soft voice, as the scent of burned flesh rose from his hand. _Perhaps he will become something new, in time. We will have to wait and see._

 _One speaks for him,_ the first voice said. _Who else?_

Noct couldn't make out the words within the shout that thundered back across the vast darkness, but he knew the instant the fire withdrew, leaving him with a leg that trembled under his weight, and an arm burned red with heat.

A small hand touched the back of his head.

 _Great-nephew,_ she said, and there was something of a smile in her voice. _It's time to stand up._

Noct stood, and the darkness fled before him.

He couldn't remember, standing with the fire of his ancestors running through his veins, why he'd ever been so afraid of something as simple as a door. He looked down at his fist. The ring hummed with magic, a live thing on his finger, begging to be used, but something in him warned him; Not yet. Not for this.

He straightened, made his slow, careful way to the hearth, and picked up the crowbar that he kept next to the toolbox. It was heavy in his hands, but it felt right, somehow. If Noct was a prince, he wasn't the kind who went around with a sword on his hip and a crown in his hair. He was a man who knew the purpose of tools, their strengths, their propensity for deconstruction. A sword only had one function, and a magic ring could probably twist the universe if it had to, but a good crowbar could do _anything._


	10. Chapter 10

The stairs beyond the kitchen door, which fell apart under Noct’s not-so-careful efforts, were empty. There should have been guards at least, but all Noct could see as he stepped into the second floor hallway was dust streaming through the wide windows, sparks of light against the sun. There were voices somewhere below, and a stuttering sound like a car backfiring, but Noct set off towards the office instead, his grip firm around the handle of the crowbar. The ring on his finger had gone from hot as a brand to cold as ice, and he blinked spots out of his eyes as he walked, still followed by the echo of those distant voices.

"A slave, huh," he said, as he rammed the crowbar between the lock and frame of Glauca's office.

It was amazing how quickly locks could break under the influence of a few feet of iron. The office door gave way before Noct, and he stepped over the threshold, under the dim glow of Glauca’s favorite hanging lamps. The worst of the discordance was there, twisting in Noct’s belly, making his mouth run dry as he came close to the computer tower in the corner. The crowbar in his hand was almost warm.

 

\---

 

Nyx Ulric knew he’d fucked up back at the Citadel. He should have kept a hold on Noctis' hand. He shouldn't have been swept up in the crowd, fighting against a sea of screaming, flailing bodies, should have known the moment Ravus fell to the dais that Noctis would do something rash. 

Now, he pushed through a circle of sputtering, jerking MTs and into a hallway that the prince of Lucis had scrubbed to a polish with his bare hands just a few days before, the king of Lucis at his heels. Clarus was a force of nature at his side, steady and harsh and solid as a wall, tearing through the enemy in swathes. 

No one, not even Cor, who had to be strapped to a gurney to prevent him from lurching after Regis himself, could have stopped Regis from coming along. It would have been better for the rescue team to go alone, but this was King Regis. Regis, the man who famously wrecked his car just because he heard his wife was having contractions. Regis, who would risk the loss of the last bastion against the Niflheim empire on the off chance that his son was still alive. Regis, who lifted a dazed, pain-stricken Ravus off the bloodstained dais to demand, in a low, terrible voice, where General Glauca would take his son. Regis beside him, light fracturing and splintering around his hand, pushing magic out before him like a living wall. 

 

\---

 

The computer tower took some effort to break. Noct had to drop the crowbar halfway through, and took to digging into the guts of the computer with his hands, snapping wires and hissing at the sting of electricity popping around his fingers. It probably would have killed him, he thought, as light sank into his skin, but maybe after a lifetime of being held at bay, his magic was desperate for anything to feed it power, any excuse to break free. The machine finally died with a last, croaking rattle, and Noct fell back on his knees, panting, examining the burn marks on his fingers. 

Behind him, he heard the tromp of boots. He didn't turn around.

“You would've lived longer if you’d only listened,” Glauca said.

Noct shrugged a shoulder and looked back, into the eyeless mask of Glauca’s magitech armor. “Your highness,” he said. “Pretty sure you're supposed to call princes your highness.”

Glauca laughed, low and booming, and took a step into the room. There was a wall around him, Noct realized. Magic--the king’s magic, used in service to the empire. “You aren't a prince,” Glauca said. “We’ve seen to that, at least. What do you know of policy? Of the movement of empires? It would have been better for you, Boy, if you’d accepted your place here. Many crave a simple life.”

He took another step, and halted before a wall twice as thick as his own, shimmering with magic that crackled and hissed like lightning.

Noct stood, his vision flickering with flashes of that vast distance where his ancestors waited in judgment. Glauca looked at the ring on his hand and shifted in his armor, and Noct wondered if, for the first time since Noct was brought there, Glauca was afraid. 

The ring knew what to do. The magic tugged at him, feeding the power of Glauca's wall into his own. The lights of the office popped and burst, and violet sparks remained, drifting around Noct like detritus orbiting a sun. He drew Glauca forward, felt the power that clung to his bones starting to wrench free, and the ring devoured it. 

It could devour everything, if Noct wanted it to. 

He lowered his hand, and the wall between them started to melt, breaking apart piece by piece. 

"I'm a Caelum, Glauca," Noct said, and the ring's magic surged about him, powerful and bright and _hungry._ "I think I can figure my place out for myself."

 

\---

 

Once upon a time, there was a young man who loved his home more than he could bear. He loved the clear shallows that stretched so far that he had to walk a mile just to get to the swell of the waves. He loved the coeurls that paced the dark underbrush of the island, lightning sparking in their fur. He loved the semaphore towers that passed messages from island to island down the archipelago, the people who waved and smiled and set up art festivals every spring, the man who refused to wear his hair in braids, who saw the approaching tide of war and said, _It'll pass us, Titus. It always does._ He loved his homeland with a bone-deep ache that shook his body, those first few days after the empire came, after the king of Lucis ordered the retreat.

But love was not enough.

Love was not enough to save the young man who had once been Titus Drautos. It was not enough to keep him on his true purpose, to remind him that whatever plans Lucis and Niflheim made, it was the restoration of Galahd that should have taken his time. It was not enough to keep the rage, impossible to direct to those who burned his home and trampled the streets bloody, from turning him into a man who could do the same to Tenebrae, _would_ do the same to Lucis. He'd always sworn, in the dark hours when the force of his decisions closed in like a vise, that he wasn't like Caligo, reveling in violence for the sake of it. Caligo, who even now lay twisted in death under the blade of the king, an afterthought in the search for his son.

But something remained, perhaps, beneath the magitech armor that slid over his sweat-slick skin, for Titus to look into the face of the Lucian prince and see his own grief there, made ugly with fury.

The king was downstairs, cleaving through his soldiers. Close enough for one last charge, one strike, a steady thrust in the right place. But Noctis was before him, now, and however fast Titus could run, it wasn't enough.

None of it was ever enough.

Noctis looked up at him with the face of a man Titus had lost over twelve years before, and the ring on his hand twisted the world around it like a black hole, threatening to consume the universe. It pulled him in, sapped the magic from his armor, dragged the strength from Titus' legs. He staggered, fell, knees striking the floor with a crack that rattled the broken glass around him, and Noctis regarded him coldly, hand still upraised.

"I could make you try it," he said, and Titus squinted into the witch-light of the ring. "I could put the ring on _your_ hand, see what sins _you_ have to answer for."

Titus could hear his own breathing, harsh and painfully loud, as the last of his energy was pulled into the ring. 

"But we already know those," Noctis said. He closed his hand, and the world snapped back into place again, and Titus didn't even protest when the thunder of boots rose from the stairs, when gloved hands dragged at his shoulders and pulled him away, leaving the prince alone in the ravaged office, eyes bright with unshed tears.


	11. Chapter 11

Noctis stood in Glauca's office, the ruined machine that had kept his magic bound for over half his life sputtering behind him, and watched his father climb up the stairs.

It was the beat after a strike, when the sharp pain of impact was done and the dull, unbearable burn was still on its way, the half second when the dread of anticipation was somehow worse than the crack of the blow. Noct swayed as Nyx, passing a silent, cuffed Glauca with only one brief, pained grimace, took him by the hand and pulled him into a half embrace. His cold eyes met Noct's unfocused ones, held them.

"I think this thing might be kind of evil," Noct said, and Nyx sighed, gently rubbing his fingers around the black band of the ring. 

"Noctis."

Noct looked up.

His father stepped into the doorway of the small, cramped apartment in Lestallum, a hand on the door. Noct's mother rose--She dropped her book, which went clattering upside-down on the carpet, and Noct sat up on the bed as Regis took another step--

Into the foyer, where Noct lay huddled next to the welcome mat, eyes closed tight, the skin of his back burning, blood in his mouth. Regis bent down to take Noctis in his arms, and Noct clasped his hands behind the back of his neck, searching for the big black car in the lawn that would take him home, home where his mother was waiting, home where her body wasn't stiff and bloodless but warm and alive and a little worse for wear--

Regis lay a hand on Noct's cheek, and Noct took a breath. There would be no rescue for the boy he'd been. There was no one waiting for him in Lestallum. There was only this, only Nyx's hand over the ring, his father with his greying hair and grief-worn face, the estate with its halls full of Crownsguard soldiers, stamping all over floors Noct had mopped for years. None of that had mattered. When this was over, the estate would go to ruin, consumed by the land, and everything Noct had done would be gone.

"Noctis," Regis said. "Let's go home."

"Yeah," Noct said. Over his shoulder, Noct could see Ardyn sitting on a windowsill, legs crossed, watching him intently. When he caught Noct's gaze, he held up his hand and winked. Noct clenched his own hand around the ring, and Ardyn disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a slow, creeping sense of unease."Yeah, let's go."

 

\---

 

He found Cor in the infirmary near the basement of the Citadel, kept under a strict guard by men who looked more than a little harried. They parted to let Noct pass, one bowing, one frantically trying for something between a nod and a shrug, and Noct's hand twitched when Cor, sitting up in bed, spotted the ring glinting on his finger.

"Oh, hell, kid," Cor said. "So it's--" He wheezed as Noct, much to the displeasure of the nurse, dropped down to wrap his arms around him, feeling his heartbeat thud against his cheek.

"Sorry," Noct said. Behind him, he could hear the click of his father's cane on the tile. "I thought..."

Cor's face softened. "I'm fine." He lay a hand on Noct's hair, tentative and light. "Better now. I hear the news is having a field day."

"Yes, well, it was all rather dramatic, wasn't it?" Regis said. He crossed the cool tiles of the infirmary and gripped Noct's shoulder, the gauze around his missing finger brushing against Noct's jacket. "You can't move past the gate without tripping over a reporter. Not to mention the, ah, rather inventive proposals."

Cor smiled crookedly, and Noct flushed, pulling away. "Any good ones?"

Noct rolled his eyes, and Cor laughed, wincing slightly. Still... He thought of Nyx's hand on his, back at the estate, and his frequent visits, stopping by with fried food from the streets and word from the Glaive, sitting on Noct's bed as though he were just... Noct, not a prince, or a servant, or any of the things he'd been expected to be all his life. Just Noct.

"I don't know," Noct said, and Cor raised his eyebrows. "We'll have to wait and see."

 

\---

 

The sunsets of Insomnia were always glorious, if you could just get high enough to see them.

Noctis sat on a balcony overlooking the city, his back to the violet beam of light that fed the magical wall around Insomnia, and took a cup of coffee from his father. He’d only had a few weeks with him so far, sleeping in the adjoining room next to Regis’ in a bed too large to be real, but it felt like he’d already lived there for years. Regis was reserved and private, a creature of habit, but there was a hunger behind his eyes when he spoke to Noct, a desperation to close the gap that almost two decades of loss had formed, and Noct wanted nothing more than to breach it himself. 

“Your mother loved the stars,” Regis said, resting his feet on the railing before him. Noct followed suit, knocking his foot into Regis’, and earned himself a smile. “She was the one in charge of naming you, you know. She said that she couldn’t trust a Caelum to name a child after my father thought _Regis_ was a fitting name to give a future king.”

Noct winced. “Ouch.”

“There’s a reason I went as Reggie for twenty years,” Regis said. 

“You know, I used to think my mom hated my… you,” Noct said, taking a sip of his coffee. “I thought she never talked about you. But she did. She talked about you all the time. I grew up hearing stories about all the shit the king used to get up to, back when he was just the prince.” He braced himself, gazing out at the twinkling lights of the city. “She still loved you. She just didn’t want me to--”

He rubbed the ring on his hand, its magic tickling his skin. Regis leaned over and placed a hand over his. 

“I know,” he said. “She wanted to spare you this burden. So would I, if you wished it.”

Noct looked up into Regis’ eyes. He wasn’t lying, he realized. Regis really would take the ring back, the ring and everything that came with it, the exhaustion and headaches and the constant, unpleasant feeling of his magic siphoning away into the wall around the city. Noct smiled wryly and pulled his hand away.

“I’m good,” he said. 

“Yes, you are,” Regis said. Noct flushed and rubbed the back of his neck, hiding his face behind the coffee. He never knew how to respond to that kind of thing. Every time Regis or Cor or Clarus, or even Mr. Scientia started to go on about how compassionate Noct was or how _thoughtful,_ just because Noct couldn’t stand being idle and would help the cleaning staff turn over the sheets… He couldn’t help but feel like he’d cheated somehow, like he wasn’t supposed to be there. Like any minute, he’d wake up and be back at the estate, ready for another morning of cooking breakfast and scrubbing windows.

And he would have to go back. Ardyn’s last farewell weighed on him, and Noct had a feeling that one day, he’d have to pay the empty estate one last visit. Still, that day wasn’t going to come around for a while, yet. There was a ball to attend, complete with dancing lessons from a bemused Ignis, then more informal dancing lessons with Nyx outside, while Gladio and Ignis thought they were being discreet by playing their records at the far end of the hall. There were classes to take and tutors to visit--When Noct could swallow his pride enough to attend. Learning that he was, as Ignis tried to tactfully put it, only _functionally literate_ still grated on him. It felt like there was an entire lifetime of work to do and only a few years to do it in, and sometimes, when Noct was alone and the ring glowed on his hand like a live coal, he wondered if his ancestors hadn’t gotten it wrong after all. 

“Ah!” Noct turned to find Regis staring up at the sky, his cheeks lit by the lamps at their back. He reached out and touched Noct’s shoulder, and Noct leaned into the touch, following his gaze along the small patch of sky visible above the haze of the city. A streak of light flashed across the blackness of space, and another, and another, darting through the sky like liquid fire. 

Noct pushed his chair closer to Regis, who draped an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. Some day, when this was all over, Noct thought, maybe there would be someone telling their kid about him, just like his mother used to talk about Regis. He knew how it would probably go, but secretly, while he sat in his father’s arms and watched meteors burn through the atmosphere beyond the wall, Noct hoped that they might start here.

_Once upon a time, in a kingdom where magic ran through the very earth and shimmered in the darkening sky, there lived a prince who loved his mother and father very much…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it was enough.


End file.
